One of the most hated shows in television history is somehow getting a second season.
On Monday, the Chairman and CEO of Warner Brothers Television Group, Channing Dungey, confirmed to Deadline that HBO Max's Velma is being renewed.
HBO Max is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery.
The decision to follow-through with the second season, despite near universal rejection of the woke cartoon by viewers, is mind-boggling.
Although Velma's premiere was the most-watched animated series opening on HBO Max ever, its audience and critic scores immediately tanked upon debut and never recovered. It currently has an audience score of seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some of the initial interest in the cartoon may have come from viewers hate-watching the series to see if it was truly as bad as reported. Numerous popular critics took to YouTube to roast it after its premiere.
It's doubtful such hate-watchers will tune in for a second opening, however. One was more than enough.
Warner Brothers Discovery, the conglomerate behind this mess, is the company whose big brains thought CNN+ would be a success. The entertainment giant experienced massive financial cuts last year, including at HBO Max.
Nonetheless, its chief financial officer sounded optimistic at the start of 2023, especially about improving HBO Max's content.
“We’re going to come out with a great product from a consumer-experience perspective, and that’s, frankly, the biggest holdback for HBO Max right now," WarnerMedia CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels told a conference in early January. "The experience is not where it needs to be."
Promoting a fiasco like Velma, then keeping it for a second go-around, isn't exactly getting "the experience where it needs to be" at HBO Max.
Perhaps the company is determined to promote a woke agenda at any cost to its bottom line, much like its competitors, such as Disney+.
Regardless, I will be avoiding Velma next year no matter what. Even a television reviewer can only take so much pain.
