The Acolyte wasn’t perfect, but it did break new narrative ground in Star Wars, a franchise often haunted by Force ghosts and endlessly recurring characters. Led by Leslye Headland, the Disney+ series dared to reevaluate decades-old tropes, unpack the flaws of the Jedi Order, and play with the space sandbox setting in new, interesting ways. But The Acolyte, which starred Amandla Stenberg as twin sisters struggling to find balance in the Force and Manny Jacinto as a super-sexy baddie, was just officially canceled.
It won’t get a second season on Disney+, and right now the worst-behaved members of the Star Wars fandom are celebrating its demise. But while The Acolyte’s cancellation stokes the fires of that ongoing culture war, it’s also indicative of a much larger problem plaguing modern television—and streaming services and rising production costs are to blame. The rise of a disparate (and expensive) collection of streaming services replacing the basic cable subscription for millions of paying customers has drastically changed the landscape of modern television.
Back in the heyday of cable TV, there was far less time between seasons of a typical show than there is now. Look at Breaking Bad, widely considered one of the most prestigious of prestige television shows: The last episode of its first season aired in March 2008, while the first episode of the second season picked up almost exactly a year later. Now, there are routinely multiple years between seasons—two y.