My Lady Jane, the historical comedy drama, has been abruptly cancelled by Amazon Prime Video just after its first season. The eight part series, which premiered on June 27, failed to attract a large audience despite its promising plot and strong cast members. Featuring Emily Bader as the titular character, the show reimagined the life of Lady Jane Grey, who as per history was the Queen of England for only nine days before she was beheaded. Interestingly, the series reimagined her story, as Jane is not damsel in distress, who saves herself from execution. Unfortunately, despite its positive reviews, the series won’t be moving forward.
According to Deadline, the cancellation wasn’t entirely unexpected. Despite its unique mix of historical romance, fantasy, adventure and comedy, the show struggled to attract viewers and never appeared in Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming charts. The first season ended with the hint that the story was far from over but now, it sadly won’t return. Interestingly, the plot didn’t leave viewers hanging, as the main characters, Jane and Lord Guildford Dudley, played by Edward Bluemel, received a satisfying happy ending.
My Lady Jane, inspired by a novel from Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows, is set in 16th century England where shape-shifters live alongside humans, who can transform into people or animals. Emily Bader’s character, Jane Grey is a regular human known as a Verity. She develops a strong sympathy towards shape-shifters known as Ethians. This becomes a concerning issue for those in power, who plan to behead her.
Ahead of the season 1 debut, Cinema Blend spoke with series Executive producer and showrunner Meredith Glynn, who said, “We feel like Jane’s story is not yet done, but we just want audiences to see Season 1. If they love it, then we’ll see. It’s interesting. I think that it could have been a terrific movie too. It’s not a big, big book. It was a best seller, but not at the level that you need for a feature film to sort of rest on.”
“I think in the old days, Jane would have been a brilliant Disney hero, but when the writer, Gemma Burgess, brought it to me, I was excited about the challenge of a series. I’d worked much more in features, and I do think it’s a story and a group of characters who can expand, with some luck. If it’s successful, I think we can go for a while. We’ve got Mary, we’ve got Elizabeth. There’s lots of great history to cover, and it’s such a fascinating period,” Glynn added.
Other than Emily Bader and Edward Bluemel, My Lady Jane also featured Anna Chancellor, Rob Brydon, Jordan Peters, Kate O’Flynn, Abbie Hern, Henry Ashton, Dominic Cooper and Jim Broadbent.
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