The CW officially passes on the Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff

The CW officially passes on the proposed Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff, continuing a disturbing trend of recent cancellations in the Arrowverse.

Well, it’s official. After months of speculation, The CW has decided that it will not move forward with the purported Arrow spinoff, Green Arrow and the Canaries. 

The series would have starred Katherine McNamara as the adult daughter of Oliver Queen, who takes up her father’s mantle in a future version of Star City, joined by two of his former crime-fighting partners in Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance and Juliana Harkavy’s Dinah Drake.

Green Arrow and the Canaries would have been The CW’s first show with a trio of female leads, rather than the solo heroes that front Batwoman and Supergirl.

The news comes almost a year after the original backdoor pilot episode of Arrow – also titled “Green Arrow and the Canaries” – aired during that series’ final season. It was a ratings hit, scoring season-high numbers for an episode that wasn’t involved in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover.

Yet, after essentially putting the potential spinoff into some sort of weird competition with the rumored The 100 prequel, the network has now decided to move its Arrowverse in a different direction entirely. And it’s one that’s more than a little upsetting.

With the news that Supergirl will be ending following season 6 and the shock cancellation of Black Lightning, The CW’s superhero universe is already losing several of its most diverse series. With the addition of the new series Superman and Lois and rumors of a Painkiller spin[off of Black Lightning in the works instead of one based on its array of more interesting character options it’s…let’s just say it’s not a great look for the network at the moment.

That’s not to say that the characters of Mia Smoak, Dinah or Laurel couldn’t be incorporated elsewhere in the Arrowverse, which does truly does need to keep its strong women front and center. Legends of Tomorrow seems like a natural home for Mia, given that the Waverider regularly travels through time already, and I’d love to see Dinah Drake or Laurel Lance show up in Gotham City on Batwoman.

But there’s something deeply disappointed about the fact that, when given the opportunity to give us an Arrowverse series that was almost entirely about women, The CW decided to shrug.

Were you hoping to see Green Arrow and the Canaries? Are you upset it’s not moving forward? Let us know in the comments.