The highly anticipated mystery thriller series YAGA made a stop at San Diego Comic-Con to share a first look with fans and tease what we can expect from the show when it airs later this year. And if it's any indication of how popular the show might be, the line for the Indigo Ballroom at SDCC reached capacity long before the start of the afternoon panel, with many hopeful fans lining up in the early morning hours for a spot. Yes, the buzz is partly because of its exciting casting, but it's the story and characters that are capturing attention, especially after YAGA's celebrated run as a stage play in Toronto.
Playwright Kat Sandler is the showrunner and executive producer behind the television adaptation, and following the SDCC panel, we got an opportunity to ask her about what the momentum behind YAGA feels like right now. She also teased more about what audiences can expect from the cast of characters in this genre-bending series that's turning the classic witchy folklore figure on its head.
Sandler credits all-Canadian team and supportive audiences for YAGA
When asked about the excitement surrounding the show, Sandler first credited the all-Canadian team behind it and the support from its home network Crave.
"I think there's something that is ethically Canadian about this show, and we are standing on the shoulders of Heated Rivalry," Sandler said. "Because of the risk that that show took and Crave, and the way the world embraced that show being different and special in its own way, we get to now do something very different, but equally as bold."
Even though the show will air on AMC+ in the US, YAGA is a Canadian project.
"Everyone in the cast is Canadian. We shot it entirely in Canada. It's so, so special to take up space as Canadians and really get to say, ‘This is what we are capable of doing’, and so it's unreal," she explained. "This is my first TV show. To have this happen, to have these people involved, to have Hudson [Williams] and Carrie-Anne [Moss] and the whole cast... [this is] the cast of my Canadian heroes."
How YAGA seeks to be bold with complex characters
If you're going into YAGA expecting to see a classic fantasy tale of good vs. evil, Sandler wants you to reconsider that outlook for something deeper and bolder—and we're not just talking about the steamy, mature content. Unlike the traditional folktale, you can expect the characters in YAGA to be more complicated and follow a moral code that dips down into gray areas.
"Every single character in YAGA [is] incredibly complex," she said. "Every single person has heroic qualities and villainous qualities. So there's always that duality of dark and light and good and bad playing."
Often when developing a television series, creators are asked to make the characters likable for an audience, and Sandler said she pushed back against this idea.
"I don't care if you like her. The point is that she gets shit done," she said. "It's been really freeing to be like, I don't care as much about if people like these characters. I just want them to be able to say what we need them to say." And at the heart of that? She says, "It's women reclaiming a story that has always been told a certain way about them."
Baba Yaga is someone who uses her own personal moral code to make judgments about others, and not unlike other "ethical" villains we've seen (Sandler named Dexter during the conversation), you can expect Baba Yaga to do what she believes is in the best interest of the public. Sandler shared that, like killers who "work by their own code... Baba Yaga gets to decide on a case-by-case basis how she wants to judge someone and whether or not they deserve a punishment. It's not an eye for an eye, because that's not how justice works. It's ‘Are you good in her eyes? Are you bad in her eyes and do you get to be?’"
Will there be more seasons of YAGA on AMC+?
Let's be clear that YAGA, as of now, is a limited series with just eight episodes planned. But when asked whether she'd hoped the show could continue with additional seasons, Sandler was quick to say yes.
"I've got to go all the way," she said. "I’ve got seasons for days in me. I hope that we get to continue it. This story has an open end, and I think it could go for a long time."
If Crave does pick up the show for additional seasons, we're hopeful AMC+ would continue to release the series in the US.
YAGA premieres this October on AMC+ with eight half-hour episodes expected to drop weekly.
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