I woke up today, took a glance at my phone, and read the sad news:
There won’t be a 4th season for the Batwoman TV show!
Here is the post of Caroline Dries who announced it:
https://twitter.com/carolinedries/status/1520142094131613697
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Well, I’m very sad about it, but not as devastated as I should/could be.
That sentence might not make much sense at first …but I will explain it later.
This will become a rather long post, but I need to write a lot right now.
During seasons 1 and 2 we got news of early renewals for another season.
During season 3 there was no such news, which already took a further impact on how much I enjoyed the episodes in the 2nd half of the season.
Then there was the news that the CW is for sale, which was rather bad than good news for the show in my opinion.
Hard to say if the show would have gotten a new season without that sale…. maybe we get info about that in the next weeks.
Then other shows like Flash or “Superman & Lois” got renewed… but still no news on Batwoman and other CW shows like Legends of Tomorrow.
To be honest, I thought the chances that the show got another season were less than 50% and I tried to convince myself of that.
Why? Because I was preparing myself for the day the bad news would pop up. In this way, I wanted to soften the impact of the news on me.
Well, I must say…it worked, even I always did hope that the show would at least get a final season 4 to wrap up the show like other CW shows like Arrow and Supergirl.
I mean the seasons were already cut down from 20 (season 1) to 18 (season 2) to 13 (season 3) episodes even I think Covid and resulting schedule problems played a big part in that.
A final fourth season with 10-13 episodes would have been the proper ending to the show.
But now, the show just ends without a proper ending, without a final season, which is very disappointing.
Legends of Tomorrow also don’t get a final season by the way. But I don’t care very much about that as I stopped watching during season 6.
In addition that I anticipated the bad news, I must admit that my enthusiasm for this show slowly declined over the last seasons.
I mean from the start I was a HUGE fan of the show and did my best to push the show. I bought magazines with Batwoman on the cover, bought posters, mugs, figurines, a countdown clock, the Blu-ray sets, and created a season 1 memory card game. I created a special mixed drink that I drank at the beginning of every episode. I wrote posts on this blog, and spend endless hours writing reviews here.
I defended the show against all those trolls on “social” media which was a very energy-draining thing, especially in season 1, as didn’t know how to handle it in a good way.
I always tried to spread good vibes.
But from the start, the show always had its problems. The first trailer was VERY bad for the reputation of the show and activated all these hateful cellar troll-creatures.
In retrospect, it was a bad decision to choose Ruby Rose as Batwoman.
She is too small for the role, not muscular enough, and well…. not really a good actress.
I know I defended her prior to and during season 1, but my view changed as she is seemingly quite a diva with some issues.
I think it almost killed the show after season 1 as she was fired from the show and I am angry about it.
I guess we will never get the full truth, but I think she wasn’t the right one to handle such a lead job on a TV show.
Then the decision was made to replace Kate Kane with Ryan Wilder. Surely that generated new fans as well, but I think that this decision had a bad impact on the ratings in the end, even though it is very difficult to compare numbers from older years with new ones.
Many hardcore Batwoman comic fans and hardcore Kate Kane fans were lost as an audience.
The show always focused a lot on “representation”. I mean you had a lesbian as the lead character of a superhero show, that was totally new and provoking for …certain “people”.
In seasons 2 and 3 they even increased that focus. Now it was “even” a newly created lesbian lead character of color.
That was a quite courageous decision that challenged the trolls even more.
Don’t get me wrong, I think representation is very important and the show had a great influence on that, I also think it changed things for the better.
But I think that it shouldn’t be the primary focus of a superhero TV show.
More or less this show was ….mainly…. about representation, drama, and relationships.
Yes, it also had superhero elements, action scenes, and thriller elements, but not as the main focus.
And I do think that was a mistake.
My main interests in this show were always the aspect of having a masked woman as the lead character of the show, having great action scenes in it, and having thrilling storylines in it.
Most of the storylines were good/entertaining for me, but the show had too few action scenes in it, maybe because of the budget.
In season 1 we had some nice secret identity issues that are always very interesting for me. There was a nice forced self unmasking and a great “close call” as a thug pulled on Batwoman’s wig.
Season 2 had only little secret identity issues and I was already annoyed with how folks always told the next bad guy how Batwoman is.
Season 3 had even fewer secret identity issues and practically no interesting scenes in that aspect. Very disappointing.
I mean, I’m already very thrilled to even see a masked character like Batwoman on-screen….don’t get me wrong.
I would even watch an episode where she would keep watching paint dry for 40 minutes as long she is in costume and cowl 😉
The new afro wig was also a negative aspect for me from season 2 on. Rather unsexy.
Even I have to say that Javicia filled out the costume much better than Ruby did. The suit got sexier and Javicia is shaped and trained much better than Ruby.
Before the show, I had big hopes for great unmasking scenes, unmasking attempts, and secret identity issues.
In that regard, the show did disappoint me more and more …over the years.
I mean, 51 episodes were made in total… and how many villains tried to find out who Batwoman is by trying to unmask her (by trying to remove the cowl)?
Well…. 0(!!!!). Again… in 51 episodes! Quite frustrating for me.
Yeah, the show had some very interesting scenes…as I mentioned….but way too little in total.
And, as mentioned there were too few action scenes in this show. In a superhero TV show, I want to see MORE of that!
Even I know they are hard to make and do cost serious money. More money as having the characters chat about their feelings in length.
Ok, that was a little harsh and exaggerated, but I’m frustrated right now….
Don’t get me wrong… I am very thankful that this show exists!
Yeah, it did cause me a lot of “work”, a lot of trouble, and time (reviews, posting, fighting trolls) …but it GAVE me a LOT in return as well!
This post is already long enough and so I need to come to an end, even though there is much more to say.
THANKS to everyone involved in this show! I am very thankful for all the work you folks put into the show!
I waited a LONG time to have another TV show centered on a masked female character as there are so few.
I hope that there will be another Batwoman TV show in the future. Maybe another company can make one with a different focus and more money involved.
I read rumors about HBO Max planning to remake/reboot certain Arrowverse shows, but don’t know if that might happen or not.
As I mentioned, Legends of Tomorrow is also not getting a new season…which means the Arrowverse is basically dead by now.
The Flash is now the last show of the old Arrowverse and there are rumors that the new season 9 will be the last one.
Sadly the decline of the CW superhero shows isn’t a new thing.
I mean Supergirl was getting worse and worse after season 4.
The last time I was really excited about the Flash was in season 5 or 6… I guess.
I stopped watching Legend of Tomorrow in season 6.
Arrow was getting worse after season 4 for me, even it still was entertaining enough.
Black Lightning was ok until it ended after season 4.
“Superman and Lois” and Stargirl are still there, will be interesting to see how long they will run.
In the meantime, there are luckily other TV shows with masked women on the horizon.
Season 3 of Stargirl will be aired this summer.
“Knights of Gotham” will hopefully get a season order after they are filming the pilot right now.
Also, the CW will have a show with a female Zorro in the near future. (#Queen of Swords reloaded?)
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Later on this day I will make my special Batwoman drink and pause a moment to remember these 3 seasons…
THANKS to everyone involved, it was a fun ride while it lasted!
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