Spoilers Batwoman season 3

Ironically, I was thinking that the Batwoman thread had become alive again with news of the show's cancellation. Good luck to the fans, writers, and others bingeing and tweeting, etc., to keep the series alive, but right now, I'm very iffy if that is going to work.

Really the series should've been canceled after Ruby Rose left. But I do give them credit for creating a brand-new legacy character for the lead. Conceiving of Wilder as a Black character, particularly in the age of the Black Lives Matter Movement, opened up a lot of new storylines to explore as well. And despite Rose leaving the show, in retrospect, Season 2 of Batwoman held up fairly well. I think they made it work for the most part.

And going into the third season there was a chance to really take it to the next level, but I think the writing just wasn't there. It started off with all the Batman rogues' weapons, and while that could've turned into a repetitive weapon of the week season, it still connected Wilder more deeply to the Bat mythos. And when they had actual Batman villains (Hush, Zsasz, Poison Ivy, and the Black Glove Society) they often were shortchanged. Ivy could've been a season long big bad, as could Hush and Zsasz. It was a neat twist to make Jada Jet, the Jezebel Jet equivalent, into Wilder's birth mother, but even that story lost some spice after the twist that made her an ally and not the big bad or one of them. Instead, the writers chose Marquis as the big bad. I guess they thought a deadly sibling rivalry would work better (even though the series already had had that with Kate and Beth, and there was still residual sibling bad blood with Beth and Mary before Marquis was introduced). And I don't think the Marquis Joker really cut loose, to really push Batwoman to the limits of her morality or sanity, which many of the best depictions of the Joker have done to Batman. Ultimately the Marquis Joker storyline fizzled for me.

Poison Ivy also fizzled. Great choice of actress, not bad costuming, but ultimately it went nowhere. I was enjoying how hard it was for Batwoman and her team to fight Poison Ivy, the writers did do a good job of making her a big threat, but then they quickly moved on when they could've developed a longer story arc for her, and Montoya.

I do think the Batwoman cast is likable (I liked Leslie in the lead role more than Rose), and I don't want to see any of them out of work, but I don't have high hopes for a renewal. I could see the suits rationalize that now that Naomi is on the network, they don't need two DC comics/superhero series fronted by Black females.

While Caroline Dries seems to have some ideas for a fourth season, I feel that last season was a big, missed opportunity, and I have little faith it will be game changing. If there is a fourth season, I'll take a look at it and see what they have planned or where it's going.

 

I imagine they are waiting to see what happens around the sale of the CW.

Batwoman is not helped by the fact that Netflix isn't paying for shows that premiered after May, 2019.

 

If Warner brothers no longer owns the CW then the new owners will have to pay licensing fees to make new episodes of DC Comics media.

One of the reasons Supergirl failed on CBS was the 3 million dollar per episode licensing fee they had to pay DC every time they made a new episode.

 

I'm watching Gotham season one.

Despite Crisis, I doubt Earth Prime and Earth 14 are the same place... But look at the criminal 20 year age difference between Montoya and Poison Ivy.

When exactly in Ivy Pepper's timeline did she start dating Montoya?

 

Cancelled.

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/batwoman-caroline-dries-confirms-arrowverse-series-canceled/

 

Can someone reach out to Ruby Rose to see if she's alright? She's probably laughing herself to death right now..........

 

I never understood why they didn't keep the Kate and just recast. Every ongoing storyline and character relationship revolved around her not Batwoman, so bringing in a new character made no sense.

 

Oh, too bad. It was a troubled and imperfect show, but it had its virtues, and it was nice to have the Batman mythos included in the Arrowverse. At least it ended with the characters in good places, in particular giving Alice's arc effective closure. The only really unresolved thing I can think of was the cliffhanger with the villain that I presume to be Dr. Phosphorus. Hopefully that'll get tied off in one of the remaining shows, or at least in a sequel comic.

 

in the comments on the article, one person cites another cite that it was more the sales/merge BS and that it wasn't part of the netflix deal and wasn't going to HBOMax as opposed to ratings to rose would have been out of job anyway even if she'd stayed (though some her castmates probably would have left).

 

The ratings were terrible, even by the low threshold a CW series needed to succeed.

 

Sad that it’s cancelled, but seemed to be a foregone conclusion with everything being up in the air regarding the sale of the CW.

I hope Legends gets a final season because they deserve a series finale.

 

Bummer. Hopefully Legends gets a final season even if it’s a short one like Arrow’s final season (8 episodes).

 

Batwoman's cancellation is not a surprise at all. The series had a focus (although not perfect) during season one with the dynamic between Kate (in and out of costume) and her father, and it appeared Kate and Luke's friendship would have been the Bruce/Lucius mirror after she acknowledged there was no Batwoman without Luke, but that was all flushed after Rose's departure.

That, and so many issues and wrongheaded decsions (and offensive in the mishandling of the subject of black males' experience to the criminal justice system) earned its ever-sinking position.

 

They still haven't shown the second half of season 3 in the UK.

I hope Nicole Kang gets a good part in a good show. The rest of the cast were okay too!

 

This is frustrating for me because I've grown tired of TV series not getting to have a proper resolution.

 

I'm not surprised. Losing the title character of a show that was 100% focused on the character and then stubbornly not recasting just lead to the show going off the rails in my opinion, Season 1 wasn't amazing but I liked it well enough and cared to see what happened with the characters. When the main character swap happened I gave it a few episodes, but I just didn't care anymore. It was Kate Kane's show, and basically nothing worked without her, regardless of how much they tried to make it. They didn't even need Ruby, honestly I didn't think she was that great an actor, but I really think that refusing to recast and keep Kate Kane as the main character is what really killed the show.

 

For season 2 Sophie should have Batwoman, and Mary should have been her Robin.

Then Mary says "So my suit is just as bullet proof as yours is, but I'm still running around bare legged in tiny green panties... You say a ten year old boy used to wear this suit? How often were his kneecaps shot off?"

Google "Fanfiction"?

Its just like the real thing, only everyone is naked.

 

As much as I liked Javicia Leslie and what she brought the role, I've wondered why they didn't recast myself. I thought Wallis Day did a very good job as Kate in the second season, better than Ruby Rose. If only had cast her or someone at her level from jump, the series might be getting a fourth season.

I surmise that the creators might have been afraid that the internet/fandom would not take kindly to Rose being replaced and consider it more like she was erased. I also imagine it provided them an opportunity to shake things up and also to try to write more relevant, topical stories by bringing in a brand new character.

To me, I think some of the fault with that decision was not going more in depth in exploring social issues pertaining to race, or giving them short shrift as Trek_God alluded to.

 

The change from Kate to Ryan happened because Greg Berlanti convinced Caroline Dries that completely changing the lead character of the series was a good idea that would open up more unconventional storytelling avenues.

 

I hate to say it, but @Guy Gardener is right...Sophie SHOULD have taken over in season 2. It would have been logical -- she's just as capable a fighter as Kate, she knows all the people...the dynamics could have shifted easily.

Now, my undestanding is that they wanted a lesbian actor in the role. So that's why we didn't get Sofie to shift. My understanding is that Wallis Day is not, and not sure if they had time to do a long enough search.

But the way they did Season 2, it was like they were hedging their bets.... they started off with Javicia, but added the Ruby replacement Wallis, that seemed to be a hedge in case they decided Javicia wasn't working. but by the end, wrapped it up so Kate's arc was technically done.

However, the show was strucured like Black lightning -- where the end game would have the hero against their arch nemesis. The problem is , it is too invested in it being Kate and ALice that they had to invent reasons for her to stay on the show (whereas, Tobias Whale could still move on with conquering Freeland and then the world, with or without Jefferson)

So who all was helping Caroline Dries (like her writers room/producers)?

Obviously, diversity was needed... people who could actually write/direct the black experience, as well as someone who could have logically made the whole Wayne Enterprises CEO work (i.e. out of the cast, Luke was clearly "most qualified" for the role; maybe Mary if they HAD to have a relative take over; )

The showrunning of Batwoman is like the DC Film Universe as a whole -- contradictory ideas, and keep shifting, rather than stick with something (especially if it worked). But instead, they threw out everything, and then try to go with what seemed to stick.


With the Batgirl movie coming out...I wonder if they also felt like, with that casting, this would be confusing with Batwoman (like the whole Suicide Squad debacle), so dump one to focus on the other.