The CW cancels Batwoman
The series, which (eventually) starred Javicia Leslie as the title character, ran for three seasons on the network
Aux News Batwoman
After three seasons, two Batwomen, and a great many kicks to the face, The CW has announced that it’s killing Batwoman off. Deadline reports the news, including comments from series showrunner Caroline Dries, who revealed the cancellation on social media, writing that, “Just got the sad news that #Batwoman will not be seeing an S4. I am bummed, but full of gratitude. What an honor to make 51 episodes. So many inspiring, brilliant people contributed to this series. Thank you producers, cast and crew. Thank you, fans! We love you.”
Batwoman—this latest incarnation, leastways—starred Javicia Leslie as Ryan Wilder, a young woman who begins punching crime after discovering a copy of the Batwoman suit that former series star Ruby Rose apparently left lying around on her way out the door at the end of the show’s first season. (Rose’s character Kate Kane did reappear eventually with a new face/actor—Wallis Day—attached to her, though, because of comic books.) Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, and Nicole Kang all co-starred on the series.
Despite some early growing pains, Batwoman stepped up to be a respectable addition to the CW’s Greg Berlanti-verse of shows, with Leslie settling in well to her spot as the lead of the vigilante drama. That being said, ratings on the series have never been precisely superheroic, and while pretty much all of the CW’s capes shows—including their ostensible flagship, The Flash—are way down from the highs of recent years, it’s not hard to see how the decision to pull the plug here came to be made.
Which also opens up that other question that comic book TV fans have been badgering the network with in recent months. Because if Batwoman was only doing a little worse than Legends Of Tomorrow—which, it was—can a similar verdict for the crew of the Waverider, currently locked in a between-seasons limbo of their own, be far behind?
44 Comments
Not entirely surprised, this show was exceptionally meh from episode one. Mixed with the behind-the-scenes drama, Ruby exiting, I’m surprised it lasted three seasons. Anything in the CW-verse featuring Bat-Family members was always doomed to cover most of the same territory Arrow already covered for several seasons. That mixed with it’s cringy, un-subtle writing, the show just wasn’t very good.
“because of comic books TV writers having to work around the lead actress leaving” There, I fixed it.
It’s still mystifying how they didn’t just recast Kate Kane. They even had a plot device that would enable them to do so sitting right there. The amount of self-imposed hoops this show has made itself jump through rather than just doing the easy solution…
Especially because part of the season 2 plot did EXACTLY THAT.
That’s possibly the most baffling part. Like… why even go there? I mean, maybe if it’s a few more seasons in and Javicia Leslie’s all settled and you need a ratings gimmick, okay, bring back Kate Kane then, but the very next season? Why call attention to it?!
I was of the opposite opinion. If you’re going to recast Kate in literally the next season, then why cast a new Batwoman at all? The plot device they used for new Kate would’ve worked perfectly.
Sorry, that’s kind of what I was getting at. I agree that it would have made infinitely more sense to just recast Kate Kane in the first place, especially since they included her in the same season anyway. What I meant was that since they did decide to go with a new Batwoman, having made that decision makes recasting Kate Kane anyway almost immediately even more mind-boggling, as that just calls attention to how awkward and unnecessarily convoluted the whole situation was. As in, if you’re going with a whole new Batwoman anyway, why call attention to the fact that you could have just recast Kate Kane in the first place and not created a bigger rod for your own back?
I mean, it’s a TV show. This is the sort of thing that happens when making a TV show. If you’re thinking “well, the explanation for it was the sort of craaaazy thing that happens in superhero comics” then say that.
Maybe Batwoman can join the Waverider crew? Worked for Constantine.
saw this coming but a giant thank you to the cast and crew and the writer’s room. i hope they see this. they didn’t know if they were getting a next season so how s3 ended is a good ending. i’m heartbroken though.
wildmoore teasing for two seasons and we finally get it and then the show gets canceled.one of my favorite casts. thank you javicia, meagan, rachel, nicole, and camrus <3
Here’s hoping Legends survives – and I wouldn’t be upset if they add Leslie to the cast (or, better yet, an alt-timeline Nicole Kang where Mary kept her powers….)
Legends is an expensive show, but it does at least have some good will built in to help it survive.Would not surprise me if next season is the last, however.
Sorry, apparently cancelled as well.
Not surprising. The show was never all that good and the production problems likely didn’t help. Especially since both Rose and Leslie spoke up about how awful various aspects of the show were (higher ups for the former, fellow castmates for the latter). The show also had a decidedly hard time making the show actually feel legitimate, so to speak. Like, Arrow, Flash, Legends, even Supergirl had set design and cinematography to give at least a decent illusion that this was a real world, but the various costumes were so bad and the sets so claustrophobic that it felt like a discount brand. By the end, it felt like the only people still watching were those who felt obligated to watch every Arrowverse show (*raises hand*) or those who wanted Ryan and Sophie to fuck.
I watched it for it’s tangential Batman related stuff, at least paid off in S3 with the legacy baddies. Marcus/New Joker was kinda great.
🙁
I enjoyed the show. I’ll miss it. It finally found its legs in season three and was in a really good spot.
yah Gotham Knights writing was on the wall for Batwoman. at least it was pretty wrapped up and show went out on it’s best season with the legacy baddies.
I’ve watched every episode, but have been meh on Batwoman since the beginning and it did not help that with each season, the show got progressively worse. (Of course, the first season wasn’t good, but at least there was some reason for Kate to have an office in Wayne Tower, while this last season we learned that someone with no relationship to Wayne whatsover, without a business education or much work experience was the president of Wayne Enterprises, which was apparently still in business, even though nobody worked in the building and somehow she gave the company to her brother, which she did not know she had. Add this to the fact that Batwoman kept having to be saved by a normal and that by the end everyone in the cast knew her identity, so she wasn’t really a “superhero”. She was just their friend who wore the suit.)I’m sure it will never happen, but when Ruby Rose left and there wasn’t a reason for Alice to be an archenemy, they should have spun Rachel Skarsten’s “Alice” off to it’s own show. They also had an opportunity when she rediscovered her long lost love — they could have gone off doing a The Fugitive thing against the woman with the island as “the one-armed man” — and now that the character (“Beth”) is looking for redemption, they could do some kind of The Pretender thing and send her off on the road.Skarsten’s performance as “Alice” was always the most compelling part of the show.
They were really screwed from the start. Rose was (and still is) a terrible actress, then when she left the whole Alice thing didn’t make a bit of sense to continue without the twin sister angle, but they tried to, and it was all such a huge convoluted mess.
Honestly, most of the cast didn’t have a reason to stick around. It was always awkward to have a show made up of Kate’s sister, Kate’s dad, Kate’s ex, Kate’s tech guy, and some other lady. It was an awkward fit from the jump, which is probably why they dragged in her long lost family this year.
What always puzzled me the most about how convoluted it became was how unnecessary that was. It would be really fascinating to know the behind-the-scenes reasons for it as the damage it did was massive.
The central issue after season one is that there was really nothing actually connecting even nominally to Bruce Wayne or any of the major Bat-Clan players. And the concept of any random person on the street can be the greatest of heroes is an awkward themetic fit with the Bat-Mythos as evidenced by this show.
Alice (Skartens) performance was exceptional from day one. Honestly watched it mostly for her and her story. She truly stole the show. I would have watched an Alice Spinoff and i completely agree with the Ryan takes over Wayne enterprises ridiculousness and EVERYBODY knowing her identity, None of these shows learned from Arrow which got weaker the more people they let in on Olivers secret and the more characters added to the ‘team’.
IIRC, the last episode (or maybe two), Sophie was riding around in the Batmobile with Batwoman. I believe she even got out and helped confront a baddie. If they had another season, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had a little rebellion and started drawing straws to see who wore the suit.
Another couple episodes more like.
They really should have just cast Rachel Skarsten as both Alice and Kate from the beginning. They’re identical twins in the comics. Ruby Rose doesn’t even look anything like her!
But I will say Javicia Leslie is a very dynamic and likeable actress, and made me like the character of Ryan Wilder a lot more than I thought I would.
Agreed on both fronts. All things considered and the state of things behind the scenes Javicia was positively amazing, also think it was her first acting job. To be fair i think all the cast were good from the beginning and stepped up in season 3 especially. Ruby Rose despite her profile was the weakest link from the start.
She barely moved her mouth when she talked. I was very disappointed in her interpretation of Kate Kane. Hopefully we get a better one in a movie some day.
She did a good job with the part, but I was sick of Alice midway through Season 1. It’s like if every episode of a Batman series featured the Joker.
I slacked off and never watched this season… did they ever explain where Bruce Wayne had gone? Or what he thought about a rando operating out of his building?
What will happen to Greg Berlanti when all of his shows are finally cancelled? Will he just fade away like Voldemort?
Greg Berlanti is like the proverbial Hydra, cancel one of his shows and two more show up in its place.He still has 13 shows currently airing and another 3-4 in development lol.
My hope is Legends gets a final season to wrap things up.
Deadline says LOT is done too.
Deadline says LOT is done too.
Probably related to Discovery acquiring Warner Media (the deal just closed). Expect more of this for a while. Everything is up in the air as new executives make ‘tough decisions’ (TM).
Selling off the majority stake in the CW undoubtedly played a role in this as well. Not to mention studios increasingly pivoting purely to streaming services rather than networks for IP TV shows.
Not really that surprising, especially since they announced the development of the Bat!Kid show, but still feel for the fanbase of the show as I know there was a passionate one there.Something I find myself pondering how minor a legacy this show ultimaly will have. Because of the decisions they made both with the characters and writing, there’s nothing truly connecting it to the larger Batmythology and most of the time it was just a random person doing random stuff with a Bat-symbol thrown in there somewhere. Because of it, if they announced that Ryan’s now coming to the comics, there’s little to really be excited about as she doesn’t truly mean anything for the larger story.Now I don’t write that to be dismissive, but rather that this is to me a real shame as I do think the Bat-Clan would benefit from expanding its representation. It would be really interesting to know why they didn’t make Ryan Bruce’s daughter or try to introduce that Wayne connection somehow even if the show’s fate would have been the same, then there would have been that meaning to tease in the comics.
No longer having to pretend it likes Batwoman, the internet breathes a sigh of relief
The only Caucasian people are “Alice” and her dad, the founder of Crow Security (or whatever it is).
Losing Ruby Rose after 1 season really started the downhill slide, frankly.Wish they’d have kept Black Lightning on, or even did the spin off for Painkiller.
I really enjoyed the work of Nicole Kang and Rachel Skarsten on this show as Mary and Alice, especially in the 3rd and best season, when they actually became sisters, which made no sense, until it did. Also the Sophie-Ryan relationship the 3rd season is not something that I expected & as ships go it was very cute and hot, and really kind of groundbreaking & also put the show on an interesting new path, that unfortunately it won’t get to explore further
I checked Stargirl without expecting anything, and was pleasantly surprised. It looks great for its budget, it knows better to do small scale stories than multiverse bull*, and does live action comic book right. Why does no one talk about it?
No regrets on paring down and falling behind on my CWDC watching around the time this launched. I’ve never heard a good word about it, and it didn’t sound like it captured what made Batwoman so compelling back during 52 and her initial series, which was amazing art and a compelling story around Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. A CW show is uhhhh not visually stunning, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ended over a decade ago.