Remember The 100 over on The CW? It was a pretty good show for a solid chunk of its run, starting off as a story about 100 teens getting from space sent to down to Earth to see if was a livable planet again after a nuclear apocalypse. And then the final season happened, and the show somehow managed to both go off the rails and make the idea of a futuristic militarised death cult completely boring and nonsensical. That didn’t stop them from trying to set up a spinoff, which is now officially getting the axe.
TV Line reported last night that the spinoff, which would’ve supposedly been titled The 100: Second Dawn, won’t be moving forward at the CW. It was planned to be a prequel establishing how remnants of humanity survived the Earth apocalypse which in The 100 proper, involves tribal clans called Grounders who also have their own language, along with a cult that found alien relics that provide interdimensional travel. (Yeah, this show was weird, and most of this is after the main show tackled bodysnatching AIs and world-ending solar flares.)
Since the episode that set up this would-be show first aired back in July of 2020, network boss Mark Pedowitz has been playing coy with whether or not the show would come to fruition. Back in May, he even said that “discussions are still happening,” but it looks like those talks have stopped. Whether the show will be shopped around to other networks remains to be seen.
According to The 100 showrunner Jason Rothberg, the plan for Second Dawn was to incorporate flashbacks to pre-apocalypse life similar to Lost, along with a plan to get characters up to space. It would’ve been a way to set up the families of The 100’s lead characters Clarke Griffin, Raven Reyes, and Bellamy Blake, in his eyes. “I had a plan to get us up there and meet the ancestors,” he told TV Line. If we’re lucky enough to tell that story, we’ll meet Great Great Grandpappy Blake.” So much for that.
Farewell, The 100. For the second time, you died as you lived: surprisingly enduring, but ultimately kinda pointless.