The hunt is over for The Winchesters: The CW has cancelled the Supernatural prequel spinoff after just one season, TVLine has learned. (The network on Thursday also pulled the plug on Kung Fu.)
The Winchesters‘ freshman season averaged 790,000 total viewers and a 0.2 demo rating (with Live+7 playback). Out of the 14 dramas that The CW aired this TV season, it ranks No. 7 in audience and is a five-way tie for No. 2 in the demo (trailing only All American).
“As we reimagine the new CW, we had to make some tough programming decisions,” the network said in a statement. “We thank our partners at Warner Bros. and the casts and creative teams of Kung Fu and The Winchesters for all their hard work, creativity and dedication.”
The Winchesters centered around Dean and Sam’s parents, John Winchester (played by The In Between‘s Drake Rodger) and Mary Campbell (American Housewife‘s Meg Donnelly), and was described as “the epic, untold love story of how John met Mary and how they put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world.” It was told from the perspective of their eldest son, Dean, with Supernatural co-lead Jensen Ackles narrating. The actor also executive-produced the offshoot alongside his wife Danneel Ackles and showrunner Robbie Thompson (who was an EP/writer on Supernatural)
Rounding out the cast were Bianca Kajlich (Legacies) as John’s mother Millie Winchester; Demetria McKinney (Motherland: Fort Salem, House of Payne) as rare books store owner/magic expert Ada; and Nida Khurshid (Station 19) and Jojo Fleites as Mary’s hunting pals, Lata and Carlos.
The show’s finale, which aired March 7, featured appearances from executive producer Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, as well as Supernatural vets Jim Beaver (as hunter Bobby Singer) and Alexander Calvert (as Heaven’s new God, Jack). In the episode, Dean explained that when he got to Heaven, he took his beloved Impala for a drive through the multiverse, looking for an Earth where his family had a shot at a happy ending. After catching wind of the Akrida and its potential threat to the Earth where Sam was still living, he gave John the letter from his father Henry Winchester to nudge him in the right direction, and thus, he met Mary and became a hunter.
During a post-mortem interview, showrunner Robbie Thompson told TVLine, “There’s so much more story to tell about where these two kids go. And because now, as Dean says at the end of the episode, they have a chance to write their own story that doesn’t have to be necessarily what happened on our version of Supernatural, we have an opportunity to really go into some interesting places.”
Among the broadcast shows still on the bubble are The CW’s All American: Homecoming, Gotham Knights and Superman & Lois. Check out TVLine’s Renewal Scorecard for the latest intel on those series and many others.
Winchesters fans, hit the comments with your reactions!
Sadly not surprised. It was a decent show, but it aired 3 or 4 years too late to be saved. I doubt Netflix picks it up, but stranger things have happened (no pun intended ;).
The CW is dead and gone. Their answer to get higher ratings is to drop most of their shows and replace them with golf, a show starring a Back To The Future cast member, and picking up multiple second run Canadian aired shows. Yeah, that definitely sounds better that DC comic shows and shows executive produced by the 2 Supernatural stars that made the channel money for about 20 years each.
The CW has new owners who have been very open about the fact that they don’t plan to keep a lot of the high cost shows from before they took over.
I understand that, but how about putting on something that people will actually watch. They may save a fortune but this lineup of shows feels like watching TV at 3 o’clock in the morning 20 years ago. It’s either watching these shows or watching Fresh Prince and Golden Girls on Nick at Nite.
That’s fine and dandy. My one and only concern at this point is Superman & Louis!!!
We can hope for that one to be renewed.
I don’t see it happening, but I want nothing more.
For me, it depends on which “Louis”.
Yet you bring in all kinds of imported crapfest.
Imported shows are cheap, veritably pennies on the dollar. Original shows cost much more (all things being relative with The CW), of course.
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Also, TVLine told you this was coming: https://tvline.com/2022/11/08/the-cw-shows-cancelled-renewed-next-season-fall-2023/
We know Matt, we know. It still doesn’t hurt any less to know that this awesome and different network that offered a variety of different things beyond just the typical procedurals we find in the other big 4 has been gutted, vivisected and desecrated all in the name of the most low-quality cost purposes.
The CW should have NEVER been sold to these bunch of scripted content butchers. Their so-called “strategy” to make a network profitable without the EYESBALLS that are necessary for the ratings because they’re pushing away all of their audience is outright laughable.
Exactly. As fans we can be upset, expecially when you see these networks that bring in new shows. At least we know how The WInchesters ends.
Darn right we have the right to be upset because we are for the first time ever actually seeing the network bringing the lowest quality product from other places because the new owners would rather try to make some profit out from realities and golfs or indy cars documentaries than actually investing and putting effort in the content of actual stories the main audience that has been tuning in for decades in this channel likes to see.
Zero respect to the “58 year olds” viewers they claimed so arrogantly last year were the real target audience. For the first time ever The CW will actually be all about cheapness.
It should have never been sold and those dumbs of WB should just renewed their Netflix deal in 2019, everyone won with that.
Totally agree. Horrible owners with no imagination. Darn I loved this show too! Fire Walker Independence and now this.
Well said!
As if the even half of the expensive home-grown shows over the years were at all any better.
does anyone knows if it ends on a cliffhanger ?
It does not. Everything is wrapped.
okay thanks I was planning to watch in the summer (is it good ? (I mean something like Supernatural or it goes somewhere else ?))
It’s very much in the style of the early seasons of Supernatural. I enjoyed it a lot. The cast was great. The over all storyline held the “monster of the week” episodes together. The last episode tied things up well but left it open for new adventures in the future. I’m disappointed (but not surprised) that it was cancelled. I’d like to see it continue on a streaming service. But if not, the 13 episodes we did get were great.
I second everything Alexis said. IMO it’s very satisfying and in keeping with the spirit of the original series.
Carlos is the best character iIMO. That kid has talent. His hair should have had a starring credit as well. Surprisingly Mary and John were the least interesting parts to me. It was still OK. I enjoyed John’s mom. The Easter Eggs were neat as well.
It’s great, and it does end on a very good note. I am going to hope it will get saved by someone.
It just wasn’t good. It might have itself story-wise with a new season but to be honest, I just couldn’t get past how badly John and Mary were cast. Neither were good actors either. Maybe others felt the same.
Agree. I wateched the pilot and at the second commercial break, I had enough. I just could not watch any further.
Zero chemistry
Damn. I am not surprised, what with what’s been going down at the network. But I am very disappointed. The show was fun and was the only new show I had watched. It gave me peace after the train wreck of a finale SPN was. Happy to be done with the network, though, and I really hope The Winchesters somehow finds a new home.
The show wasn’t as good as Supernatural. The writing was weak and the acting was so so. It didn’t surprise me that it was cancelled. I think if they had the same writers as Supernatural it would have been renewed.
The CW is failing and probably won’t be around long. Financial woes have plagued them for awhile now, and it’s not the shows that are the problem. The Winchesters, given half a chance, could have gotten as big as Supernatural did, but alas, it did not make them a billion dollars out of the gate. Supernatural took awhile to catch on, shows of this type always do, but you have to spend money to make money and I don’t think they have any left. Whether it’s a problem with embezzlement, (They had this issue) or mismanagement, another good show is gone, like every other show they released in the last few years. I hope another network buys the rights, and spends a little more on this show. I think it could be a big as Supernatural was, and make somebody a ton of money.
There have been myriad news stories about the new ownership (effective last October) and their grand plan. https://tvline.com/2022/11/08/the-cw-shows-cancelled-renewed-next-season-fall-2023/
Grand plan as in being sarcasm. XD I can’t wait to see how their plans blow up in their cheap faces.
I don’t think we need another middleman. We can get content more directly (and probably more cheaply) from the makers themselves.
Disappointing, but not surprising. The CW is no more.
I don’t want to be happy when show is cancelled, but this show was terrible, nothing like Supernatural used to be so good riddance
“As we reimagine the new CW, we had to make some tough programming decisions” Just say you’re all just a bunch of unoriginal cheap cold execs that have no idea how to run a network.
Can’t wait to hear how you all declare yourselves to be in bankrupt in 2025 once you make zero profitability without the audience and ratings that are necessary to run a network.
You’re saying all this as if the canceled TV show you’re going to bat for isn’t a short-lived spinoff of a popular 15-year-old genre drama series.
It doesn’t surprise me since they wrapped up the season and didn’t leave it on a cliffhanger. I was disappointed that it wasn’t “OUR” John and Mary but some other universes version of the although, I did like that we “MET” John’s mother.
The show was excellent . The actors gave everything. It was a comfort to watch it.
Sorry, the show wasn’t good, period.
SPN has big niche/cult fanbase. It may have a chance, but I wouldn’t put any bets on it.
This really bums me out, but at least we got a GREAT season/series finale that was complete and healing. It eased the pain I felt after the mothership ended with a finale that IMO was very unsatisfying. Thank you Jensen, Robby, et. al. for giving us REAL closure in the right hands.
CW you’ve just lost a faithful viewer. You’ve cancelled the Winchesters and Walker:Independence two of my favorite shows. The only one left to watch is Walker.
oooohhhhh. They are “reimagining” the new CW. Great corporate line there pal. You mean reimagining less viewers than even now with low brow imports , Liv golf and Fboy Island.
Don’t kid yourself lol. Literally every show The CW aired weren’t exactly high-class, intelligent PBS-worthy programming either.
But they were entertaining shows many people wanted to watch. Nothing they’re moving toward is anything I want to watch… and the quality will be appreciably lower.
This is REALLY disappointing news!!! As a life long Supernatural fan, I truly enjoyed The Winchesters!!!
That sucks. I really liked The Winchesters in the end. Took me a bit to get into, but once I did, I enjoyed it.
That being said, would anyone really want to watch the show on The CW as it’s becoming? in some ways it getting canned is a small mercy..
Meg Donnelly deserved better than this cheese fest. And so does The CW.
Since Ackles’s production company now has a first look deal over at Amazon, any chance it gets picked up over there?
Zero.
No because TW is technically owned by Warner Brothers not Chaos or Amazon. If-and thats a big if-it lands anywhere it will probably be Max. But as it stood the series bled viewers every single week. It lost 50,000 from the penultimate episode to the finale. It really wasn’t a successful show.
Was nice to get more Supernatural via a spinoff, won’t get to see if it could have improved. I’d still like to see them try the original spinoff idea of Wayward Sisters
The Winchesters was a great drama but the penny pinchers at CW seem to know all that is and all that’s going to be; must be nice. The Winchesters was a cool spin off from Supernatural and Legacies; sorry I ‘m 68yrs. old and dig scify and all that other stuff. These shows have a high fan base and 🛑 STOP 🛑 CANCELLING (the new CW) I don’t think so!!
I am not American but grew up on CW made tv series. It’s a shame to see that the new owners have gutted all but 3 scripted series. The end of an era. I was watching these programs before the WB merge and some of my favourites were now CW series. It’s been a good ride. My formative years were spent watching these shows. From the likes of Gossip Girl, to the Flash and everything in between. I will miss being a CW fan.