What’s confusing about this entire situation is that Disney and Lucasfilm apparently had plans for The Acolyte’s future. Just last month at San Diego Comic Con, Lucasfilm Publishing announced spinoff books and comics related to The Acolyte, mainly focusing on the characters that died in the series. But the four main characters that are still alive – twins Osha and Mae, Qimir and Vernestra – are stuck on the shelf. So what does this mean exactly? Did Disney believe the deceased Yord and Jecki were far more worthy of investment? On the surface, that would be an easy guess. But the real problem lies with Disney and Lucasfilm succumbing to the pressure that the poisonous side of the Star Wars fandom laid on them.
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Story-wise, it wasn’t going to be for everyone, but it was definitely for a lot of people. The amount of positive reviews by critics and Manny Jacinto acquiring new fans proved as such. But as more shows led by women, LGBTQ+ creatives and POC get canceled, it sends a signal to other networks or services that people aren’t interested in their stories. It limits the amount of diversity allowed in the entertainment industry. It also permits the obscene animosity that’s fragmented the Star Wars fandom. If Star Wars wants to continue to be a dominating franchise in this industry, it has to learn to take chances and stick with them. Otherwise, the world will move on while it’s stuck in the past.
This should not be confusing. The issue is while it did receive good critical reviews it did not hit the viewer numbers that it needed to be financially successful. The problem here is simple. There are a boatload in of SW fans but this show was not made for 95% of fans it was made for a very small demographic a portion of which are not StarWars fans. The show was not successful monetarily as a result and was cancelled as a result. The group it was catering to is either 1 of 2 things if not both. 1 not large enough to provide the viewer numbers for the show 2 not watching the show cause they weren’t fans of the source material. This is not a dangerous precedent this happens all the time. Take a show I loved Pushing up Daisy’s. It was fantastic critics loved it but the audience for it was not large enough to provide the viewership necessary to keep it on the air. The truth is this isn’t political or social it’s simply monetary. Disney has had a string of flops and they can’t afford to hemorrhage any more money.
Pushing Daisies mostly got canceled due to the writer’s strike, IIRC.
It was a factor but ultimately it came down to poor viewership and the vfx costs were higher than advertising revenue
I’d add that the writing and characters were kinda poop. Barely any of them had any consistency, or real redeemable qualities, and if any did they were killed off. I cringed really hard on episode 3, and just kinda gave up on it.
I loved everything about Pushing Daisies. I looked forward to it each week. Great writing. Great stories. Wonderful characters. That narrators comforting voice. Everything about it was somehow heart warming and macabre at the same time. Im not a big fan of musicals, but the musical scenes in those few episodes worked. Probably because Kristin Chenoweth is a national treasure. Perhaps if more people knew about it, then it would never have been canceled.