We won’t spoil here what happened in the Season 2 finale of The Owl House, but we will say we’ve been craving the answers. And we’ll get them soon enough, as a one-hour (counting commercial breaks) special will premiere on the Disney Channel next month.
The show, as originally written, was supposed to follow the same three-season arc similar shows like it have gotten, but instead it was cut off at two seasons. What would have been a full third season will instead be smooshed into three TV specials, starting with this one.
So…why, exactly? If you haven’t been paying attention (and don’t blame yourself, apparently Disney hasn’t either), The Owl House has become Disney’s next Gravity Falls with millions of screaming fans and convention cosplays. In a world where IP is king (and, on this show, King is IP), The Owl House is the kind of thing a company WANTS, right?
According to creator Dana Terrace, the decision to curtail The Owl House was apparently made by ONE business executive, who simply felt that the series “didn’t fit the Disney brand.” This vague statement doesn’t pass the smell test as The Walt Disney Company has become so huge that virtually anything can be found within that brand now. Friggin’ Deadpool is Disney.
The most aggravating thing about it is that we’re never gonna know who this guy was, even though he was high up enough in the chain to have the power to detonate a show with the wave of his hand. We’ll never know what his true motive was either. All we do know is that serialized adventure shows like Gravity Falls, Amphibia and this are falling out of favor over there, despite their undeniable success.
Instead, there’s been a trend toward sillier shows because it is believed the Disney Channel demographic is getting younger, while older viewers are heading to Disney+. And the problem with THAT is, Disney+ mostly serves as an extension of pre-existing Disney properties (it’s the only streaming service where the + in the name makes sense). A completely original cartoon, with characters no one’s seen before, would not have a home there.
I hate to be a pessimist, but I don’t believe Disney will make an original children’s series of this quality again until the generation that grew up with The Owl House becomes business executives themselves and greenlights something similar out of nostalgia. Until then, Gravity Falls, Amphibia and The Owl House will remain the trifecta of Disney TV Animation’s 2010s golden age.
