Why The CW Canceled Riverdale Spin-Off Katy Keene After Only One Season

There's a whole lot of "TV show" in the TV show "Riverdale." Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's small screen Archie Comics adaptation — an inspiredly chaotic queer work that's as cheerfully absurd as it is painfully earnest when it wants to be — burns through storylines like there's no tomorrow. It's how, in the end, the show is able to indulge in subplots involving everything from illegal teen convict fight clubs to diabolical sorcerers from alternate realities to the tickle porn industry. (That last one is very real and even features "The Last of Us" actor Spencer Lord.) The same goes for the genres it dabbles in, though there are two in particular that "Riverdale" consistently returns to throughout its run: horror and musicals.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that "Riverdale" birthed a pair of spin-offs in the forms of the horror-flavored "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" and the wholesome showbiz fantasy of "Katy Keene." The latter, which Aguirre-Sacasa developed with Michael Grassi, follows the titular character (Lucy Hale) and her friends as they pursue their dreams of hitting it big in New York City's fashion, art, and culture industries. Hence, even more than its parent show, "Katy Keene" is packed to the gills with musical sequences that cover everything from Broadway show tunes to Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers. It also gives Ashleigh Murray as Josie McCoy a chance to shine in a way that the Pussycats starlet never had the space to on "Riverdale."

Unfortunately for Katy, Josie, and company, their dreams were quickly dashed: "Katy Keene" only lasted a single 13-episode season being being canceled by The CW, as compared to seven seasons for "Riverdale" on the network and a pair of two-part seasons (spanning 36 episodes total) for "Sabrina" at Netflix. Did people simply not care for this corner of the Archie-verse? Well, no, the truth is more complicated than that.

Remember that thing about "Riverdale" being shockingly earnest sometimes? Well, "Katy Keene" is Aguirre-Sacasa and his crew wearing their hearts fully on their sleeves to tell a story about go-get-'em theater kids (and folks cut from the same cloth) living out loud in the Big Apple. That's basically what Aguirre-Sacasa did when he was younger, which adds a personal touch to the spin-off to go with its gentler melodrama and all the stylistic flourishes a television budget will buy you. Reviews were generally, er, keen on Katy in turn, as evidenced by its 91% Rotten Tomatoes critics score, with props going to its decidedly winsome cast and effervescent ambience. (The series' brighter, lighter colors and mood also make for a nice contrast to the "Twin Peaks"-inspired neo-noir stylings of "Riverdale.")

The problem wasn't that people didn't like the show, it's that they just weren't watching it. As Deadline noted when "Katy Keene" was officially canned in July 2020, its "soft" ratings (as The CW Chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz put it prior to the show's cancellation) were actually typical for CW series. But where the network's other shows tended to see a sizable boost in delayed viewing at the time, "Katy Keene" did not. Even when the COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect a month after the show debuted on February 6, 2020, viewers were more inclined to catch up on the new CW shows that had premiered the previous fall and built up more buzz — namely, "Nancy Drew" and "Batwoman" (the latter of which further benefited from being part of the then-thriving Arrowverse).

Just as the pandemic killed The CW's planned "Arrow" spin-off "Green Arrow & The Canaries," it's likely the ensuing rise in production costs didn't help the case for giving "Katy Keene" the chance to grow its audience with a second season. Perhaps if the show had come along at a different point, things would've gone in another direction. To her credit, though, Hale took it all in stride, telling E! Online a month after the series was axed:

"I definitely knew where Katy would go in the second season and all the plans for her so its always a bummer to see that come to a halt without you wanting it to, but ultimately, I only had amazing things to say about that show and the people and everyone involved in it. It really was a highlight of my career and living in NYC was amazing."

Spoken like Katy herself. You can catch her and the others by streaming "Katy Keene" on Max.