[Amazons remake of Penny Marshalls classic movie is an exploration
of sexuality, friendship, and baseball. It deserves more than just a
four-episode wrap-up.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

KNEECAPPING ‘A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN’ WITH A FOUR-EPISODE FINAL
SEASON SUCKS  
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Caitlin Cruz
March 16, 2023
Jezebel
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_ Amazon's remake of Penny Marshall's classic movie is an exploration
of sexuality, friendship, and baseball. It deserves more than just a
four-episode wrap-up. _

, Photo: Courtesy of Prime Video

 

I am bright-eyed. I am bushy-tailed. I just recovered from food
poisoning, only to discover that Amazon Studios will reportedly end
Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham’s reimagining of 
[[link removed]]_A
League of Their Own_
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an abbreviated four-episode second season
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Seriously, what the fuck?

According to an exclusive, but anonymously sourced, story in 
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Hollywood Reporter_
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Tuesday, it came down to cost:

The Sony Pictures Television-produced show will conclude with a
four-episode final season. The news follows months of renegotiations
with Sony to lower the show’s licensing fee, and the cast had to
sign new deals, given the order is for half the episodes that were
featured in season one, sources say.

Showrunner Graham made a tweet thread about the shortened second
season Tuesday, saying this news “isn’t official.” Gotta say,
though, an exclusive news item in an industry trade magazine doesn’t
bode well. Jacobson hasn’t commented on the so-called “limited
series” order, per _THR_.

What’s especially depressing about this report is that _A League of
Their Own_ has a number of impressive metrics to its name that would
lead you to assume a full renewal would be in Amazon Studios’ best
interest. Its Rotten Tomatoes score
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94 percent from critics and 87 percent among audiences. It has also
won a number of awards from the well-known (GLAAD, NAACP Image Awards,
and Independent Spirit Awards) to the lesser-known (a Voice and
Visibility Award from the National Council of La Raza).

But that wasn’t enough for the little baseball show! Instead, the
series is getting kneecapped. And I’m bummed! _A League of Their
Own_ is obviously incredibly gay, which is always a fun time for me,
a lady gay. I have quibbles with the story structures and how long it
took to merge the two worlds of Black and white ball players, but that
doesn’t mean it wasn’t entertaining as all hell. I also cannot
overemphasize how cool it was to see queer history (secret gay bars!!)
on screen.

The _League of Their Own _news nods to a bigger, more annoying
problem with media that includes queer people—and centers queer
people, even
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It seemed executives saw this as “a queer show” with limited mass
market appeal. It’s a pattern repeated in most shows about a
marginalized group. _It’s a Black show. It’s the gay show. _It
reduces our media consumption down to—ugh—identity politics. You
want to support the lesbian show, because there’s only so many of
them right now. You want to support the Latina show, as she’s the
only one on TV. But when it’s siloed into a “niche,” as Graham
called it, what are the odds it’ll have a chance at surviving?

A show about ladies playing baseball should, in theory, be for
everyone. In the case of _A League of Their Own_, Graham said the
show’s audience is not “small or niche.” “The audience is
domestic, but our understanding is that it’s very big,”
Graham tweeted
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Tuesday, alluding to how Amazon Studios, like many streamers,
doesn’t release traditional metrics to help explain its decisions to
cancel or renew shows. “It has outperformed many other shows that
have been renewed.”

If you’re also bummed by this news, Graham maintains there is hope:
“If you want to see more episodes or more seasons of this show, now
is your moment. People are listening.” The hashtag #MoreThanFour
Episodes is circulating online. Don’t let _A League of Their
Own _meet the untimely fate of so many other excellent shows
cancelled too soon
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Or worse, join Autostraddle’s_ _Cancel Your Gays
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* A League of Their Own
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* prime tv
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* sexuality
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* baseball
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* Queer History
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