• Star Wars The Acolyte is being cancelled after one season and eight episodes.
• Despite a strong debut, the show was unable to maintain its viewership momentum against its $180 million budget.
• The Acolyte’s legacy will be of mixed reactions and controversy over casting decisions.

Despite a huge, internet-sweeping mixed reaction and a big debut, the only metric that Disney+ seems to really care about is a sustained audience, especially for shows that cost $180 million to make like Star Wars The Acolyte, which is not being renewed for a second season much to the delight or destain of the viewers.

According to a Deadline report, Star Wars The Acolyte has been canned by Lucasfilm after only one season and eight episodes. Its debut saw major gains, generating nearly five millions views on its first day, but then as more people started watching the show – something started to happen.

A very large majority of its initial viewers decided it wasn’t worth finishing, for any number of reasons. By the third episode and third week, the show dropped off the Nielsen Top 10 list and the series finale saw 335 million streaming minutes which is believed to be the lowest for a Star Wars series’ last episode so far.

Creator, director, producer and showrunner of The Acolyte, Leslye Headland, had apparently already pitched the storyline of the second season to Disney executives but it wasn’t meant to be. Critically, The Acolyte managed a 78 percent overall on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics, like the audience of the series, were ultimately divided on a number of topics.

Some viewers reviled the series for perceived deviations from decades of Star Wars lore, especially when it comes to the prequel trilogy, while others called into question the plot and what many believed to be a lack of production quality focusing on fight scenes in the series.

Meanwhile, others praised the show for its setting, themes, callbacks from the films and fight choreography. Unfortunately, the show’s legacy will likely be of controversy over casting decisions, especially of non-white, non-male actors in leading roles.

We were tentatively excited about the potential of Star Wars The Acolyte and the beginning of the High Republic era, which is now up in the air thanks to the cancellation of the series. At least we have the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu film to look forward to.