Big tough CW kills off Kung Fu and The Winchesters at the same time
Reports that The CW's dad could beat up your dad are unsourced as we go to press
In a feat of what we can only imagine was incredible martial arts/demon-fighting skill and strength (and/or a couple of phone calls and the deletion of a few rows on a spreadsheet), The CW has managed to defeat two powerful opponents at once tonight, announcing that it’s canceling both the revived Kung Fu and Supernatural spin-off The Winchesters.
Based on the original series from the 1970s, Kung Fu has been on the air at The CW—which has killed off a ton of its shows over the last year or so as part of its acquisition by Nexstar—since 2021. The series starred Olivia Liang as Nicky Shen, a young woman who uses her fighting skills to battle criminals in her native San Francisco. Liang issued an effusive statement about the cancellation on Instagram tonight, writing:
It has been the honor of my fucking life to work with this group of humans. we made a historic three seasons of a show. First predominantly Asian cast in a one hour network drama. First Asian American female showrunner. I don’t have enough words (or room in this carousel) to express my gratitude to my show-runners, my writers, my cast, my stunt team, my fucking crew… I love you all. I truly won the lottery. They are all the kindest, smartest, funniest, most hard working people in the biz. Iam so so so proud of the work we did. thank you to everyone who invited us into your homes and watched our little show that could. Cheers to Kung Fu, the show that changed my life forever. I love you Nicky Shen.
Meanwhile, The CW also issued a kill notice to The Winchesters, which ran for only a single season on the network. A prequel to Supernatural, the show starred Drake Rodger and Meg Donnelly as younger versions of the parents of the demon-battling Winchester boys. The series was executive produced by original series star Jensen Ackles.
Both shows, it’s worth noting, were produced by the network’s former owners over at Warner Media, and were killed off as Nexstar makes its plans to slim down its original scripted content offerings considerably. In the interest of, we guess, brevity, The CW issued a joint statement about the cancellations, writing, “As we reimagine the new CW, we had to make some tough programming decisions. 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.”
[via THR]