Culture

“We deserve more”: A League of Their Own fans react to season 2 news

By Sam Damshenas

15th March 2023

A League of Their Own will return for a final season at Prime Video.

Although the series – a reimagining of the 1992 sports drama of the same name – received widespread critical acclaim and garnered a passionate online following, it will abruptly end with a four-episode second season.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the news follows “months of negotiation” between co-creators Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson and Sony Pictures Television to “lower the show’s licensing fee”.

Their sources additionally revealed that “the cast had to sign new deals, given the order is for half the episodes that were featured in season one”.

Graham clarified in a tweet that the news “isn’t official, which is why we aren’t saying anything”, telling fans: “So if you want to see more episodes or more seasons of this show, now is your moment. People are listening.”

The creator, who serves as executive director on Prime Video’s adaptation of Daisy Jones & The Six, also criticised the notion that A League of Their Own is a “small or niche show”.

“The audience is domestic, but our understanding is that it’s very big. It has outperformed many other shows that have been renewed,” he wrote.

“Journalists, please stop reinforcing the narrative that POC/Queer shows are inherently niche or small if you don’t have data.

“That narrative is racist and homophobic and all the other stuff. Please cover these things with some thought and care.”

Jacobson leads the reimagining as Carson Shaw, an endearingly awkward and talented baseball player who abandons her home and comfortable marriage to pursue a career with the league, called the Peaches.

The first season was lauded for the cast’s performances and for honouring the behind-the-scenes queerness of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – something the Penny Marshall-directed original failed to achieve.

There’s queer rep aplenty with Carson, Max (Chanté Adams), Greta (D’Arcy Carden), Jess (Kelly McCormack) and Bert (Lea Robinson), while the series leans harder into the era’s racial constraints with Adams’ character coming to terms with, not only proving her skills in a cis, white and male-dominated field, but living at the intersection of Black and LGBTQ+.

Jacobson previously told GAY TIMES that it was “so important” to represent “different types” of queerness in A League of Their Own.

“I felt like we were telling stories of the women that have not been told, and it felt like a great honour and responsibility to do it and have it nuanced, meaty and juicy,” she said. “It was exciting to get to tell all those stories.”

News of a shortened final season didn’t go down well with fans, who used the hashtag #MoreThanFour in protest of Prime Video’s decision.

“I saw myself for the first time in #ALeagueOfTheirOwn. And it changed my entire life. I’m a happier, more confident, more authentic version of myself. This is why representation matters,” said one fan.

Another wrote: “Since August, I’ve written #MoreThanFour words about #ALeagueOfTheirOwn. In fact the total is 204,805–that’s two novels’ worth. So far. Characters like these inspire and comfort us.

“When we see our stories told, we feel like we can tell our own stories too.”

Check out the response from fans below.