After months of passionate campaigning by both fans and the creators of the show, Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson’s A League of Their Own TV adaptation has been officially cancelled. Having previously announced a short second (and final) season, Prime Video cancelled the show entirely on 18 August amid the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
An adaptation of Penny Marshall’s 1992 film of the same name, the show expands the story of the Rockford Peaches and the all-American women’s professional baseball league. Diverting from the film’s sister dynamic, A League of Their Own follows the nascent league with a new cast of characters as they navigate a world which expects little of them. Among these new characters are Max Chapman (Chanté Adams), a talented pitcher who finds her talents constantly overlooked due to racial and sexist prejudices, and Greta Gill (D’Arcy Carden) who strikes up a relationship with the married Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson) and struggles to toe the line between hiding her sexuality and living uninhibitedly. In addition to Greta, Carson, and Max, the cast boasts an impressive number of other queer characters who struggle with various issues surrounding their identities, relationships, and gender expression.
Despite a rich and eclectic mix of characters and storylines to keep track of, the writing never falters, allowing every character the care and attention they deserve. And by exploring othering such as queerdom and race through a historical lens, the show is able to shed a light on today’s struggles as well as offer hope through a loud and proud exclamation that queer people have always been here, and will always find ways to survive, despite societal protestations.
However, despite passionate fan campaigning and critical success, the show has now officially been cancelled, a fate increasingly common for shows featuring sapphic romantic relationships. Deadline reports that the show was rumoured to start filming at the end of 2023 but due to the strikes causing a logjam at Prime Video, delays were inniment, incurring subsequent budget constraints.
A League of Their Own now takes its place in an increasingly cramped graveyard of cancelled sapphic TV shows, alongside Willow, The Wilds, and Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, all of which were cancelled prior to the strikes. As the strikes continue however, and studios remain persistent in refusing to meet union demands, it feels unsurprising, though still disappointing, to see A League of Their Own find itself so quickly on the chopping board. Perhaps it never quite made it off the bench in the first place.
Words by Camille Murray
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