Swamp Thing is canceled but remaining episodes will air

DC Universe cut the episode order during production. The cast was unhappy. The first episode was exposition city. Was Swamp Thing doomed from the start?

Per a report from Deadline, DC Universe has canceled Swamp Thing after airing one episode. The remaining episodes will air through early August. Although there were signs that pointed towards. cancelation, this is still a major disappointment for fans who were looking forward to the series. The fact that the show was canceled so quickly makes it appear as if the new owners of DC Universe, the new WarnerMedia, wanted to get the show off of the books as quickly as possible.

Swamp Thing was created for DC Universe by Ash vs Evil Dead executive producer Mark Verheiden and IT writer Gary Dauberman for James Wan’s Atomic Monster production company. There were rumblings that there were creative differences between the showrunners and Wan that lead to the episode order reduction.

That news broke shortly after a member of the cast leaked a trailer for the show on social media, which was then properly released by DC Universe hours later. At that point, I, and a lot of fans, wondered if the show was dead in the water before it even premiered. It seems as if it was.

I was also worried that the story arc for all of the characters might seem stunted by the suddenly reduced order. Well, I’m not as much worried about that anymore as much as I’m convinced the end of the season will feel abrupt and confusing. The pilot episode was supposed to serve as an origin story for Swamp Thing. It took an awfully long time to get to that. I’m all for pacing and developing characters. But the pilot was mostly exposition and very little character.

With episode two set to stream today, I wonder how much of the viewership was killed off by the cancelation. As much as I didn’t care for the pilot, I was looking forward to the rest of the season. I’ll keep watching. I’ll hope for the best. But, knowing that any side plot or secondary will never be paid off.

Are you surprised by the cancelation of Swamp Thing? What did you think of the pilot? Let’s discuss in the comments!