My Lady Jane begins with a voiceover that recounts what happened to the real Lady Jane Grey, who was crowned the Queen of England for nine days before being executed. And then it says, “F*** it, what if history were different?” Prime Video has the chance to rewrite history, too.
I remember being at breakfast, and screaming loudly at my phone as I stared at the news of the series’ cancellation, making my mother rush in from the other room in panic to check what had happened. I stomped by foot and told her my heart was broken and my mood was ruined (this is a sanitized version; there were expletives involved) because “people making these money decisions didn’t know anything!” Amazon Prime Video, the streaming platform that barely made any noise when it dropped its new romantasy series My Lady Jane by Gemma Burgess on June 27, 2024, had cancelled it, not even two months after it released. Only this time, it was not so quiet. The show’s fans, like me, were screaming.
You see, My Lady Jane, which is based off a book that offers a feminist reimagining of one of history’s brilliant but tremendously wronged women, Lady Jane Grey, is actually a pretty fantastic show (read our review). It’s got a heroine who is good and kind and beautiful inside out, and who you want to root for because she doesn’t waver from her fight for equality and justice, even when her own neck is on the line. And she’s happily married to a guy who can turn into a horse. Kinky, right? They’re monogamous, their banter makes you fan yourself, Guildford is respectful, and supports his wife’s CEO job without a hint of malice or thirst for power. Swoon! And he’s just one good-looking steed!
Apart from the fire (literally) chemistry between the lead pair, My Lady Jane has lots more to offer. It’s incredibly clever and funny in the way that women usually are, and it uses that quality to weave a commentary about power, politics, and religion in 14th century Britain. The cast is so talented that there’s not a single character you can hate; even when you don’t like them, you wish them to stay on because they make the story so fun and engaging. There’s magic but not the ridiculous, loophole-y kind. The costumes are fly. And the soundtrack is so feminist in its selection.
So you can imagine why the fans were in utter shock. It’s hard these days to leave the familiarity of your comfort show that you rewatch for the millionth time and pick up something new, because streaming is such a volatile space. New shows barely a season old keep getting cancelled and viewers find it not worth investing their time if that’s going to keep happening. And then when new shows don’t get viewership, they get cancelled. It’s a cycle that needs to be broken, especially for a great show that is unanimously getting love for its female gaze. It’s sad that in the same week, two such shows—My Lady Jane and The Acolyte—have gotten the chop despite an influx of female fans gushing over the hot leads and their chemistry.
Though, some of us recovered from our catatonia and read the reason Prime Video had cited for the cancellation—not enough viewership and not landing on Nielsen’s Top 10 weekly streaming rankings for original series. Okay, fair, but let’s dissect the reasons for why this could’ve happened.
For starters, My Lady Jane turned out to be one of the best reviewed shows this year, and yet not enough people knew that it had released. It was word of mouth that spread about what a breath of fresh air the series was, especially for a young female audience that was looking for something upbeat and peppy and swoony, but not necessarily frivolous. My Lady Jane, some (I) said, was even better than Bridgerton season 3. That would indicate the marketing for the series had clearly not been up to the mark, or at least as competitive as it should’ve been compared to, say, a The Summer I Turned Pretty season 1 or a Mia Culpa.
The second reason for this low viewership can also be attributed, as many fans pointed out, to the ongoing Paris Olympics that was so entertaining with all the drama and some sportspersons with immaculate vibes. Your usual professional binge watchers probably put their watch queues on hold for this. But either way, even if both the above reasons didn’t suffice, the time period of seven weeks since release date is too low to gauge the success of a show that isn’t a marquee title, was barely promoted, and had an international sporting event that is watched by millions (and House of the Dragon, The Boys, Presumed Innocent, The Acolyte) to compete with.
When I shared the news of the cancellation with heartbreak and angry emojis on my socials, a bunch of girl friends who check out my recommendations sent me DMs with the same reactions. They had read my review, watched the first season, fallen in love with Jane and Guildford, and were waiting for season 2, only to be let down. One of them also forwarded an online petition that she came across on X that was collecting signatures to get Prime Video to renew the show. We both promptly signed it. And the number of signatures keeps growing each day.
Meanwhile, the cast and crew have only been basking in and sharing back the love. Emily Bader, who was announced as the lead for the adaptation of Emily Henry’s adult romance novel People We Meet On Vacation after the release of My Lady Jane, shared sweet goodbyes. Edward Bluemel, who did a far better promotion of the show on his Instagram stories with pictures of horses that people sent him saying “you”, did a series of farewell stories that once again got fans pumped up to rally to save the show. Other cast members like Dominic Cooper, Henry Ashton, and Abbie Hern shared the petition, and they thanked fans for supporting the show. There’ve been watch parties held, new fans converted, and the fight to save My Lady Jane endures on social media.
Fan outcry and petitions have, on a multiple occasions, saved shows from cancellations. The biggest example is Lucifer, the Warner Bros. TV show that was cancelled by Fox in 2018 after three seasons. An impromptu tweet by Lucifer actor Tom Ellis set things in motion, with fans campaigning hard to #SaveLucifer. So strong was the support that WB decided to send out feelers, and Netflix promptly picked the show up for a season 4, and then following the success of it due to fans’ overwhelming response, an extended season 5 was intended to be its final. But guess what? The fan love was so overwhelming that Lucifer was renewed for a sixth season, which then wrapped up the redemption arc of the devil and gave him a happily ever after.
There have been several instances in the past where shows that now have cult followings and you could never have imagined (Star Trek: The Original Series, Veronica Mars) were cancelled back in their time. Fox had a couple of them. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was saved by fan campaigns and got picked up by NBC for three more seasons. Fox even cancelled Family Guy after two seasons, then had a change of heart and renewed it for a season 3. The animated show is right now on season 23 and moving mid-season to air on Comedy Central. HBO almost cancelled The Wire after low ratings for season 3, but the combined efforts of fans and critics writing about the show made HBO go back and renew it for a fourth.
Amazon itself has saved a show from a similar fate. The sci-fi series The Expanse was cancelled by Syfy, despite positive reviews, after three seasons in 2018. But fans gathered some 100,000 signatures and even crowdfunded a plane to fly a #SaveTheExpanse banner above Amazon Studios, and a bunch of celebrities like George R.R. Martin, Will Wheaton, Patton Oswalt, and astronaut Andreas Mogensen lent their support. The Expanse went on to have three more seasons on Amazon Prime Video and ended in 2021.
So now the question really is this: Can Amazon Prime Video listen to the fan outcry, just admit it made a mistake, and un-cancel My Lady Jane so it can finish telling Jane and Guildford’s story? Just as the show rewrote history and unchopped the head of Jane Grey, can you unchop it from your list of titles? I don’t mean to rush but there’s a kingdom to be saved and lots of hot Verity-Ethian sex to be had. Come on, Prime Video, why say “Nay” when you can say, “Neigh!”, eh?
Come on, do it for the plot!
Published: Aug 23, 2024 05:25 pm