Lee Jung-jae was surprised by The Acolyte's cancelation, is holding out hope for a revival
By Dan Selcke
The other week, Disney canceled The Acolyte, its latest Star Wars TV show, not very long after the first season ended with many storylines left unresolved. And unresolved they will remain forever. Let's share a moment of silence for the departed. No talking; I'll know.
The Acolyte's cancelation was surprising, since Disney usually doesn't put high-profile shows out to pasture quite this quickly. Then again, ratings were middling and the show was bizarrely expensive to make. I suspect that's the main reason why Disney pulled the plug.
And then there's the fact that the show received a lot of backlash, both for silly racist reasons and because a bunch of people, including some of us here at WiC, thought the show was just sorta lukewarm and meh. Star Lee Jung-jae, who played the Jedi Master Sol, didn't see the cancelation coming. "I was quite surprised personally," he told Entertainment Weekly. “Honestly, I am hoping that maybe there could be changes in the future. Because you never know what’s going to happen. So on a personal level, I really hope we could get to see further stories of [showrunner Leslye Headland’s] second season.”
Hey, The Acolyte wouldn't be the first show to get canceled then revived later. I don't see it happening, though. There have been a lot of Star Wars shows on Disney+ over the past several years, to the point where they're not feeling much like exciting events anymore. Disney CEO Bob Iger has admitted that the company is guilty of over-exposing some of its big franchises, so when the opportunity to thin the herd a bit arose, I suspect he took it.
Beware SPOILERS for The Acolyte below!
"As you know, my character had died already in the first season," Lee Jung-jae continued. "So I wouldn’t have appeared in the second season if there was one anyway. But personally speaking, I really loved Leslye’s writing. I thought that she was a great writer and director who was very talented in the storytelling, as well as creating characters and creating meaningful structures within the story. So I was actually personally really looking forward to watching a season 2 with her at the helm."
It's true: Master Sol bit in the season 1 finale, which was one of the better episodes of the show. So Lee Jung-jae would have been watching as a fan. There is a #RenewTheAcolyte hashtag on Twitter/X, but I remain doubtful it will go anywhere. But hope springs eternal!
Disney has a new Star Wars show, Skeleton Crew, premiering on December 3. We'll see if that one fares better. As for Lee Jung-jae, he's returning for the second season of Squid Game on Netflix on December 26. That's the show that made him famous enough for Disney to cast him in The Acolyte in the first place, and I'm looking forward to seeing him back in action.
dark. Next. Gwendoline Christie fondly remembers Brienne of Tarth, who "fed me for all of those years". Gwendoline Christie fondly remembers Brienne of Tarth, who "fed me for all of those years"
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