Sci Fi TV Week in Review: Johnny Jay’s irreverent, snarky, and caffeine-fueled look back at the past week in sci fi TV in five minutes or less.
The Arrow-verse series Legends of Tomorrow was cancelled by The CW in April and the network has already set its Fall 2022 schedule, but fans of the show have not given up hope yet. They have kept it trending on social media since before the cancellation and they raised money to put up a billboard in downtown New York City. And just yesterday they flew a banner over Warner Bros. Discovery buildings that said: “@WBD Be A Hero & Save Legends Of Tomorrow“.
Sound on 🔊🔊
This kid is all of us.
“Yay Legends Off Tomorrow. This is Legends Of Tomorrow. My dad wuvs the Legends Of Tomorrow” @wbd don’t break their heart and please #SaveLegendsOfTomorrow@caitylotz @talaashe @jesmacallan @tseky @missamypembs @ketomizu @LoTWritersRoom pic.twitter.com/kGXnuGzUSb
— Campaign #SaveLegendsOfTomorrow (@CampaignLegends) June 2, 2022
Series star Caity Lotz commented on the fan efforts saying that The CW “needs to give these amazing fans something!” Whether anything will come from this remains to be seen, but perhaps Warner Bros. Discovery and the network will be convinced to bring the show back for a final shortened season. We have seen previous fan efforts to save shows like Manifest, The Expanse, and Lucifer rewarded, so perhaps Legends of Tomorrow will be the next one rescued from cancellation.
Meanwhile, The CW released the trailer for its upcoming non-Arrow-verse Batman-without-Batman series Gotham Knights which drew a great big round of . . . raspberries. Bruce Wayne is murdered (no that’s not a spoiler, it’s in the darn logline) and his son along with the children of several of Batman’s rogue’s gallery are framed for his death. They go on the run to clear their names in what looks like the worst of the worst of The CW’s copy-and-paste fare, and of course it has a lot of pretty, young faces. You can see the trailer if you dare at this link, but it is much more fun to read the comments slamming the show.
Disney+ is changing the Emmy category for its Hawkeye series to . . . Comedy? Apparently the lines are rather blurred across categories and a few quips and humorous scenes allow a show to consider itself a comedy. But this is actually good news for fans as it was previously in the mini-series category which suggested it would not have a second season. The change could indicate that more episodes of this one could be in the works. Moon Knight was also entered into the mini-series category, but there is no word on a change at this point. But hey, it has a walking, talking hippopotamus so maybe it can count as a comedy as well?
Another show that could get a second season on Disney+ is Obi-Wan Kenobi. All indications were that it was originally planned as a close-ended mini-series, but the early viewing numbers are quite good and inside sources suggest that a second season could follow. Nothing is confirmed at this point, but stay tuned for updates. Now, what about that second season of The Book of Boba Fett?
In new shows headed to Disney+, Tales of the Jedi was one of the late announcements from the Star Wars Celebration last weekend. That is an animated anthology series that takes place during the prequel era. The six episodes are split into two “paths”. the first following Ahsoka Tano, and the other tracking a young Count Dooku before his fall to the dark side. That show is currently planned for a Fall 2022 premiere, though no date has been set yet.
In the digital ratings, Stranger Things Season 4 topped all Netflix viewership for the week of its premiere; surprise, surprise (okay, no surprise). That show set a viewership record with 288 million hours viewed, and that was over just three days because it was released on a Friday. In linear ratings, nobody is watching HBO’s new series The Time Traveler’s Wife. That show pulled a 0.02 rating (two one-hundredths of a ratings point) this past Sunday with 159K total viewers and its prospects for a second season are not looking good at the moment. Over on The CW, Tom Swift had a so-so start with a 0.06 rating with 440K total viewers. Those aren’t great numbers but could be enough to keep it afloat as a Summer entry. More on the streaming and linear ratings for sci fi TV shows at CancelledSciFi.com.
Next week brings more premieres with For All Mankind returning for its third season on Apple TV+, Ms. Marvel kicking off on Disney+, Evil having its third season premiere on Paramount+, and more. You can see all the premieres for June and beyond at this link and you can see the Weekly Listings here.
In trailers this week, we got a look at Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 as well as the upcoming Paramount+ must-see movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. You can see those and more at this link.
Did I miss anything? Probably because I have started on the network scorecards now that the regular season has ended and there are quite a lot of cancellations to tally, so let me know in the comments below.
Be sure to keep up with the news during the week with This Week in Sci Fi TV and r/SciFiTV.
SciFiTVSite.com: Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and keep up with what is airing/streaming each week with our Weekly Listings.
CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the status updates of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
