“A League of Their Own” cocreator Will Graham shared a lengthy response to the show’s recent cancellation and renewal reversal at Amazon’s Prime Video on Wednesday.
“We are still fighting for ‘League.’ But whether we win or lose this one, I’m so proud,” he wrote. “From the time when we began working on the season, Abbi, Desta and I said to each other — ‘Let’s not hold anything back. for as long as we get to be here, let’s do this the right way.’”
“We got so many notes wondering if the exploration of the queer world of the 1940s or Max’s world would be better saved for Season 2, if people needed to start somewhere a little more familiar,” he continued. “I’m so glad we didn’t listen, cause now I’m sitting here without any regrets. And no matter what happens, the people behind ‘League’ aren’t going anywhere.”
Prime Video broke the news that the show’s renewal was reversed on Friday, blaming the strike for the cancellation of the shortened second season.
“A League of Their Own” was cocreated by Graham and Abbi Jacobson. Jacobson also starred as Carson Shaw, a married woman who took a chance and tried out for the All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League when her husband Charlie (Patrick J. Adams) was off at war, because she didn’t feel fulfilled at home. Once she makes the Rockford Peaches team, Carson grows close with Greta Gill (D’Arcy Carden) and the two spark up a romance in the safe space of their teammates, even though Carson is engaged. Season 1 left off with Charlie walking in on Carson and Greta sharing a goodbye kiss.
The television version of Penny Marshall’s 1992 film launched its first season in the summer of 2022, diving deeper than the film into race, sexuality and other identity aspects of the players who participated in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was formed when the era’s men had to go fight in World War II. After nearly a year’s wait for any news of a renewal, The Hollywood Reporter first leaked the discussion of renewing the show for a second, shortened season, comprised of four episodes.
“In a time when all queer people are personally and politically under attack across the country and HRC has declared a ‘state of emergency,’ my biggest fear is that the many queer fans of ‘League’ will take this reversal as one more invalidation, one more blow, one more effect of the general politicization of our identities,” Graham added.
Graham’s cocreator Jacobson, who also stars in the show as Carson Shaw, posted a statement on Instagram Friday hours after the show was cancelled at Prime Video.
“To blame this cancellation on the strike is bulls–t and cowardly. But this post isn’t about all that,” Jacobson wrote. “About all the ways this show has been put through the ringer. Not today.”
The show was previously promised a four-episode second season, to which fans responded with a chartered plane over Amazon Studios in Culver City with a banner that read #MoreThanFour.
Graham explained the plans for future seasons of “A League of Their Own” in a post mortem interview with TheWrap after Season 1.
