When Wynonna Earp returns for the back-half of its fourth season on SyFy on March 5, it will mark fans last trip to Purgatory. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of the show’s cancellation on Friday, despite previous chatter that the show would receive fifth season. “Ending Wynonna Earp with season four marks a reversal for Syfy,” The Hollywood Reporter explains that the plans for season five fell through when IDW, who owns the rights to the comic book series on which the show is based, dropped its financial support of the series.
Wynonna Earp stars Melanie Scrofano (Ready or Not, Letterkenny) as the great-great-granddaughter of wild west hero Wyatt Earp, attempting to outrun a family curse with the help of her gun Peacemaker. In season four, split into two parts due to COVID-19 delays in production, Scrofano made her directorial debut with the episode “Look at Them Beans”. The Earp-actress and director shared her thoughts on the cancellation and her excitement for the latter half of season four, which will now serve as the show’s final episodes, on Twitter.
“This fandom is the most incredible fandom, built on kindness and acceptance,” Wynonna Earp‘s Doc Holiday actor Tim Rozon (Schitt’s Creek) told TVLine ahead of the show’s fourth season “it’s an incredible thing to be part of, and this season is the season that fandom deserves.” Rozon thanked the show’s fan community, who lovingly call themselves Earpers, and hinted at a “fight” for a fifth season on Twitter.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, there could still be modicum of hope for Earpers seeking a fifth season, as Rozon indicated. “Wynonna Earp producers will continue to look for a new home for the series,” The Hollywood Reporter shared “a production deal for season five hinges on finding a new distributor to air it.”
For now, Wynonna Earp fans can expect a return of season four on March 5 and finale on April 9. Despite its moderate viewership numbers, TVLine mentions how big blow this cancellation news will come to the show’s rabid fanbase. “Wynonna Earp is a two-time People’s Choice Award winner for Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show,” TVLine reports “and, more significantly, a four-time GLAAD Award nominee for Outstanding Drama Series.”
Over its four years on air, the Canadian genre drama has been praised for its unique brand of camp feminism and representation of LGBTQ+ characters. The show’s impact on the LGBTQ+ community was exemplified by GLAAD’s tweet mourning the loss of the series after the news of cancelation broke on Friday.
Wynonna’s sister Waverly, played by Dominique Provost-Chalkley (Wynonna Earp, The Carmilla Movie), has a series-spanning love story with Purgatory Sheriff Nicole Haught played by Katherine Barrell (Wynonna Earp, Workin’ Moms). Barrell took to Twitter on Friday to wish an emotional farewell to the series that bore her and Provost-Chalkley’s on-screen romance, dubbed Wayhaught by fans.
Season two addition to the series, Varun Saranga (Wynonna Earp, Carter), brought another LGBTQ+ character to Purgatory with his nerdy sidekick Jeremy Chetri. Saranga celebrated the series by saying “once an Earper, always an Earper” in his Twitter farewell to the series.
Lastly, showrunner Emily Andras (Wynonna Earp, Lost Girl) has spent the day expressing her full range of emotional reactions – including gratitude for her four seasons on Wynonna Earp and a mix sadness and shock at the news of cancellation – on Twitter. It’s unclear at the moment whether Andras and the producers will shop the series around for fifth season at a different network or retire from demon fighting in the Ghost River Triangle after season four’s finale on April 9.