Sapphic Show Cancellation Pattern of the 2020s

Sapphics in fandom have noticed a pattern seemingly occurring during the early 2020s regarding TV series with sapphic representation: that shows of this ilk are frequently and consistantly prematurely cancelled. Often, these shows get no further than the first or second season, though lucky ones have been able to get one or two more.
Comparisons have been made between this pattern and 2016, the year in which every fictional sapphic seemed to be at risk of Bury Your Gays. Though this trope has largely receded, it does still appear occasionally, such as in Killing Eve, which hasn't helped the situation within sapphic fandom. 
Typical examples of queerbaiting, though also more uncommon in recent years, also contribute to this distrust between sapphics and the shows they congregate around, such as is argued around Wednesday and the ship Wenclair. Evolved queerbaiting, such as is argued with the likes of Thasmin in Doctor Who, and the blink and you'll miss it moments in several of Disney's foray into sapphic representation, also don't help.
Diva Magazine calls it Cancel Your Gays in one of its articles.
== History ==
Some shows are mentioned more frequently than others, most often those with larger fandoms: Wynonna Earp, The Owl House, Batwoman, Gentleman Jack, The Wilds, First Kill, Warrior Nun, and A League of Their Own pop up often in lists every time another sapphic show gets canned. 
===2020===
*18th March: Vida is cancelled after three seasons.
*30th April: Dare Me is cancelled after one season.
*26th June: Vagrant Queen is cancelled after one season.
*5th August: High Fidelity is cancelled after one season.
*14th August: Teenage Bounty Hunters is cancelled after one season.
*17th September: Stumptown is cancelled after one season.
*20th October: Away is cancelled after one season.
*29th October: I Am Not Okay with This is cancelled after one season.
*20th November: Black Lightning is cancelled after four seasons.
===2021===
*5th February: Wynonna Earp Season 4 is announced to be the last for the show. The final episode airs 9th April.
*28th April: The Baker and the Beauty is cancelled after one season(?).
*17th May: The Owl House is renewed for a reduced third season of three 44-minute episodes.
*24th August: Betty is cancelled after two seasons.
*2nd September: The Republic of Sarah is cancelled after one season.
*14th September: Genera+ion is cancelled after one season.
===2022===
*7th January: I Know What You Did Last Summer is cancelled after one season.
*13th January: Gentefied is cancelled after two seasons.
*27th January: Work in Progress is cancelled after two seasons.
*29th April: Batwoman is cancelled after three seasons on the CW.
*6th May: Queens is cancelled after one season.
*10th May: Dollface is cancelled after two seasons.
*12th May: 4400 is cancelled after one season.
*12th May: Naomi is cancelled after one season.
*13th May: Pivoting is after one season.
*7th July: Gentleman Jack is cancelled after two seasons by HBO. Though the BBC have expressed wishes to continue the series with another co-producer, no third season has been confirmed as of March 2023.
*28th July: The Wilds is cancelled after two seasons on Amazon Prime.
*2nd August: First Kill is cancelled after one season.
*8th August: Q-Force is cancelled after one season.
*26th August: Resident Evil is cancelled after one season.
*9th September: Paper Girls is cancelled after one season.
*23rd September: Queer As Folk is cancelled after one season.
*1st November: Fate: A Winx Saga is cancelled after two seasons.
*8th November: The Imperfects is cancelled after one season.
*7th December: Monarch is cancelled after one season.
===2023===
*5th January: Astrid & Lilly Save the World is cancelled after one season.
*19th January: Gossip Girl is cancelled after two seasons.
*20th January: One of Us Is Lying is cancelled after two seasons.
*20th January: Vampire Academy is cancelled after one season.
*30th January: Reboot is cancelled after one season.
*24th March: The L Word: Generation Q is cancelled after three seasons.
*12th June: Gotham Knights (TV series) is cancelled after one season.
*26th June: Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is cancelled after one season and removed from the Paramount+ streaming service less than a month after the finale aired.
*18th August: A League of Their Own is cancelled after one season after initially being renewed in March for a second and final reduced episode season. Amazon blame the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, though many fans were quick to dismiss this excuse in favour of supporting the strikers.
*9th November: The Rookie: Feds is cancelled after one season.
*21st November: The Horror of Dolores Roach is cancelled after one season.
===Other===
*Willow was initially reported to have been cancelled, however it was clarified that this had been incorrectly reported. Instead, the show was on hiatus, with Jonathan Kasdan stating S2 had been written and hoped it would make it to screen. The situation was further complicated by Disney removing the series from Disney+ mere months after it's release as a cost-cutting measure.
==Comparisons==
===Other Queer Shows===
Some fans have argued that shows focusing on gay or mspec cis men don't have as much of a problem getting renewed as sapphic ones do. Further discussions have addressed the different ways in which media representation affects the different groups of the queer community. 
There have been a number of inter-fandom tensions and arguments over the topic, especially when a streaming service does not promote or advertise their sapphic-led media, which they go onto cancel, but widely promotes an achillean-led media, which is renewed. The tension between the First Kill fandom and the Heartstopper fandom was one notable example of this. Fans of Heartstopper felt as though First Kill fans were blaming Heartstopper for their show's cancellation, fans of First Kill argued that they were simply using Heartstopper as an example of the issues within streaming, and other fans felt that the criticism should be aimed at the streaming services without invoking other shows or their fans.
Other non-sapphic focused queer shows are not so lucky in regards to renewal, such as Dead End: Paranormal Park, a show whose queer rep involves the main character being a trans man in an mlm relationship, and the secondary main character Norma Khan being bisexual. The show was cancelled after two seasons.
==Fan's Reactions==
Many of the cancelled shows – particularly those with larger fandoms mentioned previously – had social media campaigns to try and get them renewed or released to be shopped around to other services or networks. For example: someone on Twitter started a campaign for the renewal of A League of Their Own, , including renting a plane with a banner: link; the original campaign for renewing Wynonna Earp (TV series) contributed to it moving to SyFy for a final season, though the campaign for a season 5 was not successful; and the campaign run by the Warrior Nun fandom, which involved international meet-ups, the purchasing of billboards, and other notable actions, drew a lot of media attention. 
==Successful Renewals==
*Warrior Nun was successfully renewed for three feature films with the help of a fan campaign to #SaveWarriorNun after being initially cancelled in December 2022. Since the announcement, however, uncertainty has grown about the direction any renewal is likely to take and many fans feel they were used by the producer and original creator (See: Warrior Nun #Cancellation and Revival.)
*Wynonna Earp was picked up by Tubi for a special titled Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, the announcement in February 2024 being nearly four years since the release of the finale in April 2021.
==Responses from Streaming Services==
===Lack of Transparency===
In January 2023, Netflix co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, invoked ire from many fans when he made the following statement in an interviewNetflix CEO faces backlash for wild comments on cancelled show - Pink News:
This explanation (and other, similar ones) for many sapphic shows being cancelled has been repeated in other online spaces in opposition to suggestions that sappic focused shows are being disproportionately targeted. However, due to the lack of transparencyWhy Streamers Are Stalling on Sharing Data - The Hollywood Report from all streaming services about how the calculate what a view isNetflix has changed the way it counts viewers – does it matter? - The National News; How Will We Know Who’s Winning Streaming War if Every Service Counts Views Differently? - The Wrap, what their threshold for a successful show isAn Industry of Secrecy: Why Streaming Companies Hide Viewership Data - Arts Managment & Technology Laboratory, and how they generally make decisions about renewals and cancellations‘A League of Their Own’ fans are frustrated by the show’s early cancellation—and so is the showrunner - daily dot, there is a lack of information for anyone, fans or show-runnersSteven Soderbergh Is Deeply Concerned About Lack of Data Transparency From Streaming Services - Collider; ‘I Don’t Know How My Show Is Doing’ - Vulture alike, to understand how their shows are performing. There have also been discussions about which sapphic-led shows get green-lit in the first place (do only the ones with more elaborate or expensive premises get the go-ahead?) and the lack of advertising they receiveWarrior Nun Thrives on Netflix Despite Having a $0 Promotion Budget - CBR which ultimately plays a hand in the failure. 
===Shows Removed from Streaming Services===
In what many fans believe to be cost cutting measures, there has also been a noticeable increase in shows being removed from streaming services entirely, sometimes within months of the show airing. A number of cancelled sapphic shows have been impacted by this including The L Word: Generation Q, Willow, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, Genera+ion, as well as sapphic shows which completed their run like Motherland: Fort Salem.
With some of these shows being originals – that is, made by the streaming service for the streaming service – their removal from the platforms leaves fans of the show without legal options to watch the shows anymore. This only compounds the frustrations of fans of sapphic shows.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies has since been released on Digital and DVD release.Return to Rydell High With 'Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies' DVD Release
==Media Attention==
As more sapphic focused shows were cancelled from 2020 onward, online news outlets began to pick up on the conversations in social media spaces and report on the cancellation patterns. A few articles include:
*Why Are So Many TV Shows About Queer Women Getting the Axe?
*Lesbian TV shows 'targeted by cancellations'
*'Warrior Nun' joins 2022's Graveyard of Cancelled Sapphic Shows
*Why Netflix Keeps Canceling Lesbian TV Shows
GLAAD also found, as part of their on-going reporting into LGBTQ+ representation on TV, that 2021-22 it was the fifth consecutive year where lesbian representation declined, a statistic no doubt influenced by the number of cancellations:
GLAAD also track the representation in canceled shows, and their 2022-23 report found that 52% of LGBTQ+ characters in canceled shows were queer women, with 31% being lesbian charactersWhere We Are on TV 2022-23 - GLAAD.
The report also contains the following paragraph:
Of the four shows referenced, just one, Harlem, has not been cancelled as of August 2023. Given the predominantly queer female casts of A League of their Own and The L Word: Generation Q, this will likely have a big impact on the representation statistics for the 2023-24 report.
==Further Information/Meta==
*It's a Queer Thing podcast had an episode, Cancelled Queers, focused on the cancellations of Batwoman and Legends of Tomorrow which included brief mentions of other cancellations.
*Big Gay Energy podcast had an episode, Cancel Your Queers 2022: Is Netflix Homophobic?, focused on Netflix cancellations, including a number of sapphic-led shows.
*Ladies First podcast had two episodes episode — The Streaming Business of Warrior Nun and WLW Media and Viewer Behavior, which discussed the state of sapphic media in 2023, cancellations and business decisions from streaming services, and fandom reactions.
*The Impact of Streaming Services on Fandom
==References==
*48 TV Shows With Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Characters Cancelled After One Season by Riese