R.I.P. TRL 2.0, the Show Nobody Watched [Updated]

MTV’s second attempt at reanimating the corpse of TRL has failed.

TMZ reports that the network has pulled the plug on the do-over, sending emails out to staff that the series will not be returning in April, as their “hiatus” is now a permanent one. Don’t mourn this loss too much, for TRL will return in a different form—a “pivot to short form content that will be featured on social and digital platforms.” A haunting sentence. A chilling image.

Or, as TMZ put it in a mild to medium burn: “MTV thought they’d greenlit Godfather: Part II, but it was more like Part III.”

The shiny and slick reboot was never going to be Carson Daly’s TRL—a show that for better or for worse, had an impact. Whether that impact is good or bad—who can say. The new iteration of this show was, quite honestly, horrible.

Let’s take a brief trip down memory lane.

Here’s the time Britney Spears sang.

Here’s the time Mariah Carey felt a little tired.

Here’s a recent entry that should stand in for evidence as to why this was cancelled in the first place.

Good night, sweet prince.

Update, March 15, 8:50 A.M: TRL’s existence was bad, but this news is somehow worse: turns out the show isn’t cancelled, but it is expanding. When TRL returns in April, the afternoon portion of the show will be “targeted toward the 12-24 age group.” Total Request Late, which is this dreaded franchise’s nighttime entry, will run 4 nights a week instead of its usual two. To complete this trifecta, there will be a morning show, for now called Total Request A.M., which will be, in the words of MTV president Chris McCarthy, “the Today Show, but through a music filter.”