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A League of Their Own writer shares update on show’s future after Amazon cancels series

Show, based on 1992 Tom Hanks film, was picked up for shorter second season then cancelled

Isobel Lewis
Thursday 24 August 2023 11:06 BST
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The co-creator of Prime Video’s A League of Their Own series has shared a desire to continue the show after it was cancelled by Amazon.

Based on the 1992 film of the same name, the show starred Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden as members of a female baseball team in the 1940s.

The show, which arrived on the streaming service in August 2022, was initially renewed for a four-episode second season in order to wrap up the characters’ story arcs.

Last week, however, Prime Video announced that they had changed their plans, telling fans that A League of Their Own would not be returning for a second outing.

On Wednesday (23 August), show co-writer Will Graham – who uses they/them pronouns – shared a “very long thread” on Twitter/X addressing the show’s future.

Claiming that the team had found out that the show had been cancelled at the same time as fans, Graham urged the show’s LGBT+ fans to “take care of yourselves”.

“As I’ve been thinking about what’s happened, I come back to a quote from Penny Marshall’s film: ‘The hard is what makes it great.’ Making this show is so hard and so great. There’s quite a bit to say about what’s been hard, but at this point that’s in the past,” they said.

“Of course, if we have an avenue to do it well, we will continue the show, and I love seeing the noise you’re making in support of that. The noise matters!”

Graham continued: “It’s hard for me to imagine there wouldn’t be a home for a show that thanks to you was in the Nielsen Top 10 for three weeks, was the top show on Amazon for a month and in the top five for six, that was recognised by critics as something special… and that has a built in and deeply passionate audience.”

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New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

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Nielsen TV ratings gather viewing data in order to determine the audience size and composition in the US.

Graham went on to stress the importance of writers winning the ongoing WGA strike, and getting a “fair deal”, after some reports suggested the Hollywood strikes had played a role in the show ending.

They added: “If we don’t find a good path forward, I will still know that League did what it came here to do and, in its own small way, changed the world.

“Thank you for making our work mean something bigger. We’ve heard from so many different kinds of people around the world who are watching League.”

While initial reports had claimed A League of Their Own had ended, in part, due to the Hollywood strikes, it was later reported that scripts for all four planned episodes were completed before the Writers Guild of America went on strike in May.

Following news of the show ending, star and co-creator Jacobson said that “to blame this cancellation on the strike is bulls*** and cowardly”.

“But this post isn’t about all that,” she wrote on Instagram. “About all the ways this show has been put through the ringer. Not today.”

A League of Their Own is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.

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