'My Lady Jane' fans launch online campaign and petition to save the series (2024)

When the historical revisionist series My Lady Jane debuted on Amazon Prime Video in June 2024, it delighted critics (the series currently holds a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and courted a modest but loyal fan base. Yet after a single, eight-episode season and only two months to set down roots on the streamer, Amazon has canceled the series.

But as often happens when promising series are felled before they can reach their — cough — prime, fans have organized to save My Lady Jane from cancellation. A coalition of fans under the moniker Save My Lady Jane have launched an all-sides assault to convince the streaming giant of the series' worth, or, failing that, to attract the attention of a potential new suitor who could provide Jane with a new home for season 2.

Save My Lady Jane published a petition on Change.org on July 15 to, in their words, "show your support for this unique storytelling" and "demand the return of My Lady Jane."

But they didn't stop there. The petition also includes a link to a Linktree that urges fans to rate and review the series on IMDb, Prime Video, and RottenTomatoes, as well as follow the group on X and Facebook and DM Prime Video on Instagram. It also offers email templates to be sent to Amazon COO Albert Cheng, as well as a general grievance account.

The email template copy reads in part, "I am writing to express my deep frustration and disappointment over the cancellation ofMy Lady Janeon Prime Video. As a loyal Prime Video member, I am genuinely shocked by this decision, and I am seriously considering ending my membership. I did not expect this from Amazon or Prime, companies that usually claim to value their customers. This cancellation and the widespread outcry it has sparked clearly show otherwise."

"My Lady Janeis a highly unique series that is one of the only Prime Video series createdby women, for women," the template continues. "It resonated on a deep level with me and many other women, who felt seen and understood in a way that is rare on mainstream platforms. The decision to cancel this show feels like a direct silencing of the female voices it so powerfully represents."

My Lady Jane is a freewheeling twist on the real story of Jane Grey, the so-called "Nine Days Queen" of England who ascended to the throne on July 10, 1553, before being deposed by her cousin "Bloody" Mary Tudor only nine days later.

Based on the book of the same name by Cynthia Hand, Prime Video describes My Lady Jane as "a retelling of English royal history — but with some major changes. In this version of the tale, King Henry VIII’s son Edward doesn’t die of tuberculosis, and neither Lady Jane Grey nor her husband, Guildford, are beheaded. Instead, Jane is crowned queen overnight and finds herself at the center of a plot by nefarious villains to take the throne."

The series stars Emily Bader as Jane, Edward Bluemel as Guildford, Jordan Peters as Edward, and Kate O'Flynn as Mary. The cast is rounded out by Anna Chancellor, Rob Brydon, Henry Ashton, Dominic Cooper, and Jim Broadbent.

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In their petition and in the email template copy, Save My Lady Jane praise the series for "challenging" the prevailing fantasy media inclination toward shoehorning in "gratuitous sexual violence and trauma." My Lady Jane co-creators and showrunners Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn touched on the very same subject when discussing the series with Entertainment Weekly in June.

"We have no sexual violence, nothing like that," Burgess told EW. "It's about joy for us, it's about communication, connection, and fun. Personally, I get very upset when I watch something that seems to be having a lot of sexual violence or sexual threats against women as entertainment. That rules out a lot of fantasies. But I love fantasy shows. So, this is an optimistic, safe fantasy show."

Save My Lady Jane have established themselves in a long and noble history of fan activism to save prematurely canceled series. There was the effort to save the Wachowski sisters' sci-fi series Sense8 at Netflix in in 2017, an ABC boycott threat over canceling Last Man Standing the same year, and a petition to save the Latinx comedy The Baker and The Beauty, also at ABC, in 2020. That petition garnered over 100,000 signatures and still wasn't saved, so Save My Lady Jane is advised to keep pushing.

There are plenty of examples of canceled series being renewed by their original networks or finding second and even third lives on other networks, however. Amazon itself "saved" sci-fi series The Expanse in 2018 after it was canceled by NBCUniversal's Syfy network. The Matt Groening animated sci-fi comedy Futurama was canceled by Fox after four seasons, revived for four direct-to-video movies after intense fan pushback, then revived on Comedy Central for two seasons, canceled again, picked up as a podcast, and then revived again just last year on Hulu.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine was canceled by Fox after five seasons in 2018 and picked back up by NBC for three more. Veronica Mars was canceled after three seasons on UPN in 2007, fans rallied around a movie for closure, which happened in 2013, and Hulu revived the Kristen Bell-starring series for one last season in 2019.

The impossible happens all the time. My Lady Jane could very well be next.