Batwoman Cancelled

Batwoman executive producer and showrunner Caroline Dries has just announced via Twitter that the show has been cancelled after 3 seasons and 51 episodes. Honestly, it's not shocking, given that the show had been left out of the CW's renewals announcement about a month ago, and had been reportedly "on the bubble".

I think the cancellation doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the public enjoys superheroines.

The cancellation doesn't surprise me at all. I enjoyed some of the Supergirl shows, never watched this one. It had the same pattern: critics' darling nonstop, yet smaller and smaller audience with each episode, losing another half of the audience each season. Whatever the critics admired, the fans didn't care about.

Plot summary sounded like you'd be totally lost if you hadn't watched every episode, or read every issue of the comic. And that it's a whole lot more grim and violent than Supergirl.

Show's namesake star gone at the end of the end of the first season. Everyone's all fine about that and she'd be happy to return. But then a year later she claims near-fatal stunt carelessness, plus sexual abuse on set. Management responds with claims they fired her for bad behavior.

Virtually all the awards the show ever got are from queer advocacy groups, not mainstream science fiction fandom. And yet there was a queer-culture Twitterstorm when the show began, about whether it was queer enough. I didn't find out if the people who were outraged ever wound up satisfied with the show's version of genderfluid identity.

This all sounds like an extremely troubled production that took on topics controversial to the fans, then stirred up more internal controvery with at least one side lying about the others being abusive and irresponsible. And at least one side apparently got away with awful, unprofessional behavior themselves.

Were you a fan of the show?

I think it’s the problem that cw cannibalize itself. Because this was the sixth superhero show I think. Because there’s the flash, Supergirl,legends of tomorrow ,then Stargirl and then there’s arrow. So I think they thought their audience would eat up any show regardless of what superhero was in it and they overestimate the audience. Plus you have shows like Riverdale that are equally as ridiculous as the superhero shows so there was a decent amount of content besides this. Plus I’ll be honest I didn’t watch the show I thought it was a bit cringe in the trailer when I think it’s Kate goes the suit will be perfect when it’s made for a woman.

"cw cannibalize itself"

Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. If the 7th (or whatever) series was one of the most popular & beloved comics characters of all time, maybe it could have worked. Or maybe it was just over-saturation of the whole theme for their audience.

Don't mess around, because if Batwoman has been cancelled. Also Legends of tomorrow will have been. Leaving them with a bad ending.

That is, if they left it a bit open ending to continue. Now what, they will close it in the crossover special. Or it will stay that way.

Yeah, it's official.

www.cbr.com/dcs-legends-of-tomorrow-canceled-by-the-cw/

That's what happens when you fire Brandon Routh.

This is what happens when your show is more about "the message" then actual good storytelling.

Batwoman should have been cancelled after the terrible first season.  They had zero audience and lost half of it with season 2.  How they got season 3 I don't....well actually yeah of course they wouldn't cancel it.

But I guess the new management at WB/CW said "I'm not going to be burning money on these shows. CANCELLED!"

Legends of Tomorrow was the same.  As LFan noted, these shows start off with a good season 1 and then tail off.  Except Batwoman, which was just garbage from the first episode.  Legends though, had a bad first season, then reinvented itself in season 2 and became really good.  They had a good fan base built up.  Then around season 4, "the message" started being more important then the storytelling.  Guess what? Audiences said "BYE".

Stargirl season 1 was really good imo. I haven't seen the second season yet, but I'm guessing the move to CW will have an effect.

Haven't seen Superman show. No plans to either.

Peace.

/K

I'm going to miss Alice. Best part of the show.

I'd like to hope this is a lesson to execs that you can't keep a show running entirely through a small but loud woke twitter crowd. But it probably won't be....

jimbob wrote:

I'd like to hope this is a lesson to execs that you can't keep a show running entirely through a small but loud woke twitter crowd. But it probably won't be....

CW = young and inexperienced writers. writing for their friends. Which is fine. Just not for me.

I remember being young and idealistic in the 60's, and immersed in our own version of 'woke', albeit not by that name. Mostly it was just the written word because we only had three Networks, and what was popular on TV was Gunsmoke and Bonanza and the like. Shows for old people glorifying and older past.

But we had some movies. Quite a few, actually. Among others, go back and watch Easy Rider today. That was dripping in the 'woke' of the time. Politics and movies have a long history. It's a good thing -- if you keep it in perspective. 

But this from someone who was briefly a Yippee at the 1968 DNC convention in Chicago. Counterculture revolutionary quasi communist. But I grew up. Made my choices. Two years later I was in the military. Got a degree on the GI Bill. Had kids.

But it was great fun at the time to be a revolutionary. I wouldn't take that experience away from any generation. And the girls... my God, the girls of the time. Pre-AIDS and post-contraception pill. A brief bit of heaven without cares or consequences. That is something subsequent generations truly missed.

Shadar

It is just pure market over-saturation. Too many superhero shows with not enough to really distinguish themselves from each other. I have not watched one of the CW shows in a while because all the plots just felt like they were bleeding together. First couple of seasons of Arrow were great. The Flash has been pretty good but has gotten very hit or miss. Supergirl started strong but just got repetitive. And so forth with the other shows.....

Personally, I think the CW would have been better served having shorter seasons and then swapping out the shows over the year. For example, a 10 episode arc for the Flash. One that ends, Supergirl takes the time slot and does 10 episodes, then Arrow, Legends, Black Lightening, Batwoman, etc. Or have two shows running concurrently and swap out with the others.

Instead, you had at least 6 superhero shows running on the same network while competing against the content being pumped out by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other streaming services. It is just too much content for a lot of people to consume on a regular basis.

“Woke” is putting more things to sleep, shows, businesses, restaurants etc. When you start telling people how wrong they are because they’re not “Woke” they spend money elsewhere.

Get Woke, go broke. As they say.

It’s less that stuff is too woke and more it’s crap writing Star Trek from the 1960s was just as progressive as next generation though they got better writing in the next generation  later on as it was at first stuck in the 60s a little too much. Or just look at the twilight zone. At the end of the day there’s less censorship which leads to a lesser need to be creative around getting your message across so it’s the same message but more blunt which ultimately can take the viewer out of the experience. It’s why writing is important