Rejoice, Hundreders (or whatever we’re called) – The 100 was renewed for a season 3! So, what now?
As anyone who’s seen the show can attest to, The 100 is one of the most under-appreciated gems on television.
With its powerful storytelling, its strong female (and male) characters and its commitment to consistency (both in terms of storylines and character development), The 100 is an example of what television can be at its very best.
When fans compare it to critically acclaimed shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica, it’s not just because of the whole spaceship/jungle thing: The 100‘s biggest strength is in how it tackles big, human questions, allowing us to examine ourselves and our own realities through the characters and their struggles.
Finn’s death in the mid-season finale was a powerful example of this: not only did the character die tragically, but it was main character Clarke who had to end his life, to save him from a slow and torturous execution. This impossible choice will likely haunt her for a very long time, and we get to judge her from a safe distance, wondering how we ourselves might have handled such a terrible situation.
Related: The 100 season 2, episode 8 recap: May we meet again
This show is going places – too bad no one’s really noticed.
For a show like The 100, the CW is both a good and bad network to be on. Bad, obviously, because of the “teen” label so easily placed on its programming, and because of the inherent glossy quality one associates with its cinematography (although looking at shows like Supernatural and The 100, it may be time to revise that assumption).
But good, because on a more mainstream network like ABC or Fox, The 100 would probably have been axed six episodes in. These days, the big networks look for very specific types of shows, that need to hit it big straight away. There’s no real chance to grow – either a show has an audience, or it doesn’t. (Or, in some cases, a really good legal contract allowing it to stay on the air long enough to build a viewership.)
And let’s face it: for one reason or another, people are just not watching The 100. Not only does its teenage cast and science fiction-adjacent premise turn off a large percent of prospective viewers, but The CW is doing very little to promote one of its few remaining standalone dramas. On a network which is relying more and more heavily on superhero programming, there’s very little room for gritty real people.
So what does this mean? The low ratings and lack of advertising could easily have meant cancellation, and absolutely nothing was certain until The CW unveiled their decision to renew practically its entire lineup for the 2015/2016 season.
So now, instead of crying bitter tears and bemoaning the unfairness of the network TV model, we’re actually heading into the third season of the little show that could, a fantastic piece of serialised fiction which seems to be enjoying surprisingly free rein on a network whose attention is shifting elsewhere.
It’s every showrunner’s dream, to not only be allowed to put their show on the air in the first place, but to take their characters and lead them exactly where the story demands that they go. Jason Rothenberg and his team are not only incredibly talented, they are also very lucky.
Where do we go from here?
We know they’re leading up to a spectacular season 2 finale, which they’re currently working on. More than likely, this finale was conceived as a potential series finale, as the decision to renew the show was only made public yesterday. There’s still time for some tweaks, but knowing the writers, they’re not going to go easy on us.
Seeing how much bigger the show got in its second season (usually when writers say this about their show they’re just blowing smoke, but in this case there really was a damn big fire), we can’t even imagine where it might go in its third year. Will the characters find the City of Light? Will they blow up Mount Weather?
Or are we perhaps looking at a new, even greater threat which will make all the skirmishes between the surviving humans seem small and insignificant? On The 100 nature is, after all, the greatest enemy. In season 2 they amped up the tension with new human enemies – in season 3, it’s likely we’ll see the curiously inhabitable world (you know, apart from the occasional acid fog) turn on its new residents.
The power of the fanbase
While fan support doesn’t always guarantee renewal (a recent example is The Secret Circle, a CW show cancelled after its first season despite very dedicated fans), we can’t deny that the fans’ support had a lot to do with the survival of The 100. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing and acting that the show has built up a strong following, and even jaded higher-up network executives can’t deny the power of fandom – if not in terms of ratings, then in terms of social media buzz.
We’ve all seen how much loyalty the writing team has instilled in the fanbase. For a show like The 100, an engaged, active group of fans is everything, and whoever is managing The 100 writers’ Twitter page is doing a brilliant job of acknowledging every single one of us, and encouraging us to continue tweeting and spreading the word.
And the audience does grow, one by one, as a result. Every day, a few more people are brought into the fold – and almost every single person who gives the show a chance ends up loving it.
Whether or not The 100 will ever see a boost in viewers, or might end up on cult fave lists alongside the likes of Firefly, is vital that the show continues its strong collaboration with its fans from here on out. And it is equally vital, of course, that the fans continue to share their support of the series. Just look at Supernatural – sometimes fandom really is everything.
While there are the obligatory all-caps shipper spammers (all fandoms have them, and unfortunately they give shipping as an investment in character development a bad rep), most of the support we’ve seen for The 100 have been from genuine TV lovers, surprised to have discovered such a genuinely good, high-quality drama.
And as long as we continue to watch the show, and share our love for it, we’ll see the writers and actors’ confidence in their product grow. They know they’re not “just” making a teen drama; they’re telling genuine stories that people care about.
Whether The 100 lasts three seasons or 10, we’re lucky to have stumbled upon this modern-day Buffy; living proof that a good show is one that cares more about its characters than ratings-boosting gimmicks – and that long-form, serialised television isn’t a dying art.