"Star Wars" Series "The Acolyte" Canceled after Season 1

The "Star Wars" series "The Acolyte" will not return for season 2.

Lucasfilm has elected not to continue with the “Star Wars” Disney+ series following its first season, which depicted the rise of the Sith roughly 100 years before the events of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.”

The news comes at once as a shock, given how much of the Season 1 finale ended on a cliffhanger and teased several plotlines for a Season 2, and not much of a surprise, given the wildly opposing reception from fans and the less-than-robust viewership that appeared to drop off after the series premiere on June 4.

Creator Leslye Headland (“Russian Doll”), an avowed “Star Wars” super fan, set out to create the first “Star Wars” story set outside of the core timeline in the franchise that stretches from “The Phantom Menace” to “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” 

The show followed twins Osha and Mae, both played by Amandla Stenberg, who were separated as children and led to believe the other had been killed. Some critics and fans loved how the show challenged the traditional perception of the Jedi as infallible and wholly virtuous, as embodied by the emotionally self-serving choices made by Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), who is responsible for removing Osha from her family and causing her separation from her sister.

Other fans, however, felt those creative choices were antithetical to the good-vs-evil nature of “Star Wars” storytelling, and strongly objected to the show’s expansion of the mythology of the Force. 

“The Acolyte” was also review-bombed, an insidious practice most often employed as a form of digital protest against inclusive casts centered around actors of color and  characters like Osha and Mae’s mothers played by Jodie Turner-Smith and Margarita Levieva. (The 2017 film “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” was an early recipient of this kind of trolling.)

Despite the objections, “The Acolyte” also captured a great deal of positive reactions, especially surrounding the reveal that Manny Jacinto (“The Good Place”), first introduced as Mae’s hapless sidekick Qimir, was really the masked Sith warrior commanding Mae to assassinate the Jedi responsible for separating her from Osha. A scene in which Jacinto disrobes along a rocky coastline as a tactic to seduce Osha to the Dark Side garnered a great deal of attention, spawning legions of thirst posts to social media. 

Other cast members included Carrie-Anne Moss, Rebecca Henderson, Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo.

Lucasfilm’s next “Star Wars” series for Disney+, “Skeleton Crew,” debuts on Dec. 3, and it could scarcely be more different from “The Acolyte,” with a cast made up mostly of children and an approach akin to the Amblin-style kidventure tales from the 1980s. 

The second and final season of “Andor,” the sprawling political drama starring Diego Luna, is set to follow in 2025, and a second season of “Ahsoka” is in development.