Walker will walk no further at the CW
The Western reboot of the long-running Chuck Norris series will hand in its gun and badge after four seasons
Aux News The CW
Photo: Rebecca Brenneman (The CW)
Shut the door, Walker. Have a seat. The CW wants “to thank the entire cast, crew, writers, directors, and producers of Walker for their hard work and dedication over four incredible seasons,” but your services and roundhouse kicks are no longer required. According to an Instagram post by star Jared Padalecki, The CW has canceled the Walker, Texas Ranger reboot, Walker, after four seasons.
“It is with a heavy heart that I share this news with you,” wrote Padalecki. “Walker will not be airing on CW for a fifth season. It’s a tough piece of news to be sure, but we are SO thankful for the Walker Family that has been built, both on set and off.”
The CW show thanked team Walker, who they are firing effective immediately. Padalecki, who previously starred on CW (née WB) hits Gilmore Girls and Supernatural, received a special shout-out from the network for being a “member of the CW family for over 20 years and was integral to some of the biggest hits on the network.” That said, please have your locker cleaned out by the end of the day, Padalecki.
Walker was a reboot of the long-running ‘90s drama Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris. That show lasted some 200 episodes, an episode order The CW wasn’t interested in attempting. In 2022, the network launched Walker: Independence, a prequel series that lasted one season.
Per Variety, despite being one of the highest-rated shows on the network, Walker was yet another victim of CW owner Nexstar Media Group’s cost-cutting measures. No longer a bastion of scripted primetime television, the CW is pivoting to cheap reality shows, religious soap operas, and clip shows from within the Totally universe, including Totally Weird And Funny, Totally Funny Kids, and Totally Funny Animals. They’ve also got reality shows Police 24/7, Hostage Rescue, and Loves And Liars. Yeah, it’s looking pretty bleak over there.
Walker was among the last of the network’s dramas. Gone are the days of Arrow and Riverdale, which helped create a solid following of TV viewers that powered the network for the last decade and a half. Superman & Lois ends its run later this year, while the sports dramas All American and All American: Homecoming continue unabated. Which of those shows will survive, and what will be left of them?
21 Comments
Did anyone watch this show that can tell me what it was actually like?
watched half of the first season, it was quite … boring. nothing really exciting, and the usual glorification of law enforcement.
Yes. Boring as fuck.
No one ever gets kicked in the face is all you need to know. I’m talkin’ roundhouse kicks, side kicks, spin kicks, none of ‘em. Narily a karate chop. No evil twins, no amnesia story lines, no crossovers with Martial Law, nada.
I watched, I think, one season. It was a family (melo-)drama with the occasional Texas Ranger-ing thrown in.
Does their Totally Expanded Universe include Totally Spies?
TOTALLY!
P
Obligatory.
Mandatory to post in any thread about Walker.If they would’ve done this in the remake I’d watch every episode twice, hell I’d start a letter-writing campaign.
This should have been what the remake was about. Every episode he has to tell another kid. While people are trying to kill him. End of season one twist: none of the kids had AIDS. Walker is just an asshole.
4 seasons and a prequel?!
“the CW is pivoting to cheap reality shows, religious soap operas, and clip shows from within the Totally universe”
What’s that? 7th Heaven reboot? Oh, wait….
I never watched a single second of Walker, but I did see endless commercials for it while watching the other CW shows so I feel like i know most of the plot of the four seasons. But the cancellation makes me a little sad, as it really is the end of an era, one that I loved but still maybe didn’t fully appreciate. Much like the Blue Sky era of USA Network, there were a lot of shows I liked well enough that just made for a pleasant viewing experience, full of shows I enjoyed watching once and never thought of again, but I really miss that kind of show now.
My partner and I were late to Nancy Drew and Riverdale, so we watched on streaming and then watched the last seasons live (we also watched Tom Swift, FWIW). It really is kind of sad that kind of fun programming is getting nixed and CW is turning into a bunch of cheap filler. The Blue Skyes era of USA is a good comp and it was sad when that ended too.
It really is sad that the era of Prestige TV killed off all attempts at Just Good Enough TV.
You didn’t miss anything. I gave it a try for a few episodes (which I think is fair) and it was boring as hell. The only reason it lasted this long is because Jason Padalecki was hot off the heels of Supernatural.
We were literally talking about this show five minutes before I saw this article, and in an especially hilarious twist, it was in the context of trying to think of actors who have been working continuously as regular or recurring characters on TV shows for long periods of time. Padalecki’s name came up because he was on Gilmore Girls for several years, moved over to Supernatural for 15 years, and immediately started on Walker when that show ended.
Wasn’t there an episode of original Walker where a kid had psychic powers or something?
I also remember an episode she’d chuck norris was trapped in like a elevator cage or something and the bad guy kept sending in guys with weapons for him to fight one at a time. That show was weird. But it was on in between two of my classes when I was in college, so I watched it basically every day for a semester