Gotham Knights Canceled After Only One Season
Gotham Knights has been canceled after only a single season.
It has been confirmed that Gotham Knights will not be renewed by The CW for a second season. According to Deadline, The CW has a budget for four dramas next season, and with All American and Walker having been previously renewed, there was really only room for two more series to solidify next season’s lineup. Until yesterday’s update, the fates of Superman & Lois, All American: Homecoming, and Gotham Knights were all hanging in the balance as executives analyzed the numbers, meaning one of the three series would have to make its way to the chopping block.
Brad Schwartz, President of Entertainment at The CW stated that producing these series is expensive, and that the network doesn’t have streaming rights, which are critical to maintaining a network’s bottom line, which is a source of frustration. Considering that Gotham Knights had the lowest critical and audience score compared to its contemporaries, it makes sense that the series was cancelled. What’s more, Superman & Lois and All American: Homecoming are slated for their fourth and third seasons, respectively, meaning the stakes would be much higher in cancelling one of these series rather than Gotham Knights, which will conclude its first season’s 13-episode run on June 27, 2023.
Though Schwartz has gone on record stating that The CW loves all of its programming, it makes sense that Gotham Knights would be the series to be let go when you look at how each series is faring on Rotten Tomatoes. All American: Homecoming is currently sitting pretty with a 100 percent critical score, and an audience score of 74 percent. And although Superman & Lois doesn’t have a critical score of its own, it’s performing quite well with an audience score of 81 percent.
When you consider Gotham Knights‘ 23 percent critical score and 46 percent audience score, it’s safe to say that this Natalie Abrams, Chad Fiveash, and James Stoteraux developed series was the weakest link when it came to consideration for renewal. So the problem that Gotham Knights faced was two-fold: the series was not only in its infancy, but also under-performing when pitted against Superman & Lois and All American: Homecoming. At the end of the day, networks need to be deliberate in their decisions to renew a series, and if the numbers don’t add up, then they need to move on and keep pressing forward.
Gotham Knights followed the story of Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan). In this series, Hayes, runaways Harper and Cullen Row, as well as the Joker‘s daughter Duela are framed for the murder of Bruce Wayne/Batman. They form an unlikely alliance in their efforts to clear their name with the Gotham City Police Department, and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Misha Collins).
Though this sounds like a compelling narrative to get behind, the prevailing sentiment is that the series leaned too heavily into utilizing lesser-known sidekicks as well as Turner Hayes, whose character had no previous history in the DC canon, and was created specifically for Gotham Knights.
It’s unfortunate that we wont’ be able to explore Gotham Knights further than what its first season presented to us. But given the competitive environment that these series exist in, it makes sense that The CW would decide to lean into shows that were more well-received by audiences under their new ownership.
