Wynonna Earp: Emily Andras on the Season 2 Renewal
Once upon a time there was a fandom that loved its show so much that it even played an instrumental role in getting the show renewed for a second season. Sit back, put your feet up and let me tell you a little story about a show called Wynonna Earp and the fans who loved it so much that they wouldn’t rest until someone took notice and renewed the show.
After several weeks of “NO CHILL” on Twitter and a heartfelt email campaign, Syfy took notice of a fandom that kept after the network to #RenewWynonnaEarp. These fans simply refused to be ignored and the Wynonna Earp cast announced that the show had been renewed this past weekend at San Diego Comic Con. The supernatural series based off the IDW comic book follows Wyatt Earp’s great great granddaughter Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) and will return in 2017 with 10 new episodes.
Showrunner Emily Andras couldn’t join stars Scrofano, Tim Rozon, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Shamier Anderson and Katherine Barrell this past weekend at Comic Con, but she wants the fans to know how much their campaigning helped and how much it meant to her and everyone involved on Wynonna. She recently joined The TV Junkies to talk about the fans’ impact, how much she hated missing out on the fun in San Diego and future plans to celebrate with fans at other cons. At the time of our chat Andras says there’s no official word on shooting schedules or premiere dates but stay tuned here at The TV Junkies as that information becomes available.
The TV Junkies: Congrats on Season 2! Who do you think is happier, the cast or the fans?
EA: The cast is so adorable and they deserve it. The fans are so cute and I love them all. I seriously love you guys all so much. Let’s just go and have our own con, Wynonna Con!
TTVJ: There were some pretty big fan campaigns in the works for this renewal. How big of a difference maker were those things in Syfy coming to their decision to renew?
EA: Massive! Massive! I’m not even kidding. Massive! It made a huge difference and made it almost impossible for them to cancel us. If no one had been paying attention they could’ve just killed us, right? But it became almost impossible to ignore and there are people that are so happy and excited about the fans.
TTVJ: What was extra amazing was how positive the fandom stayed throughout it all as well.
EA: And they all love each other! Everyone was lovely and no one yelled at me — barely anyone yelled at me. It was a huge deal and it’s gotten us noticed everywhere. The other thing that happens going into Season 2 is that people have heard of the show now. That’s massive for us because more people are going to be like ‘OK you won’t shut up about Wynonna Earp. What the heck is this stupid show?’
This fandom got this show renewed. 100%. I’m telling you that worked. I love them.
TTVJ: It was like three solid weeks of powering through on those campaigns and the emails weren’t just two or three sentences. They were huge paragraphs.
EA: They were relentless. No chill for the win! The emails really helped and were going to people high up the chain, but it all helped. It was amazing and they become impossible to ignore.
TTVJ: Going along with that, do you know yet if the show will be streaming anywhere?
EA: No idea. I think there are some things in the works but we can’t announce that yet.
TTVJ: So seeing all those fan campaigns were you still surprised at the fan response and turnout for the show at Comic Con?
EA: Yes! Not in a million years did I expect that and it totally blew my mind. I was happy because I saw that nobody had any fun without me which I thought was an appropriate response. It was very serious and very dire.
It was crazy! The other great thing was that the network was there and they got to watch the response. It’s one thing to see it all on twitter but it’s another to see a fan dressed up as Bobo Del Rey in 90 degree San Diego heat. Coming face to face with fans like that makes it so much more real and palatable. You can talk to people and find out why they love the show and why they’ve connected with it. I’m still blown away that people have connected with this show the way they have. It’s incredible.
That cast are the best ambassadors for the show. They are the most incredible group of actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. They are so stoked, so charming, so witty, so funny, so engaged. They went above and beyond with how they interacted with fans. It was delightful for me to watch from afar. I think it was so good for them to see the excitement of the fans and remember exactly who you are making this for. So when it’s -40 in the middle of the night on a Wednesday in Alberta you can remember why you’re working so hard, for these people who absolutely love it.
I do want to shout out though to the #ComicCants [Earpers who couldn’t attend SDCC]. That made it fun and made me feel better that we had our own little fun back home.
TTVJ: Speaking of cons, you’re getting a lot of requests on Twitter to attend specific ones. Do you have any plans as of this moment to attend any?
EA: No, but I’m so bitter that I missed Comic Con that I will go to any con for the next 20 years. I just want to do Cons forever–travel the world and meet fans. That’s all I want to do. So if you have a con in Antarctica, you email me and I’ll come.
TTVJ: There’s some pretty great European cons you could hit up.
EA: Are you kidding me? Australia Con! Me and a koala! Italy Con? New York Con? I’ll go anywhere! Whatever. The irony is though that it’s really hard to do cons if you’re in production. We can’t do cons if we’re actually shooting because we can’t take the time off. But send me your cons! I’m in for it! I love cons. I’m King Con! I’m never missing another con if I can help it by the way.
TTVJ: Switching gears away from the cons and looking to Season 2, are there any plans to add Kat Barrell as a regular?
EA: Absolutely everything is on the table. 10 episodes is less than 13 episodes so I don’t know. I can’t really recall whether the fans like Kat Barrell or not. What is a WayHaught?
I don’t know yet though. I just don’t know. I certainly think there will be more WayHaught. We are only just starting to explore that relationship and I think you’ll get your fill of Waverly and Nicole. Everything is on the WayHaught table. Everything is on Nedley’s couch as far as decisions to be made.
Were you excited about Wynonna Earp‘s renewal? Sound off with your thoughts about Season 2 in the comments below!
Wynonna Earp Season 2 will return to Syfy in 2017.
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About The Author
Bridget Liszewski
Editor in Chief Bridget Liszewski comes from a long line of TV Junkies who fostered her love of television from a very young age. She's channeled that passion into covering both US and Canadian television shows, and is thankful everyday for the invention of the DVR. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she loves college football and is a fan of sports in general. Bridget is always up for talking TV and you can follow her on twitter at @BridgetOnTV.
Great interview! The Wynonna Earp family gonna rock it! So that we get more hardcore fans and season 3 wouldn’t be a problem, lol! Thank you Bridget and Emily!
What an awesome interview. We love Emily, the show and the cast and everybody is so amazing in this fandom. This fandom is small but mighty and we are very passionate about the show and the cast. We look forward to many more seasons and now Syfy knows we mean business and this fandom will do what it takes to make sure that happens. Keep loving each other and enjoy life.
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am that the Fandom “Earpers” were heard and made such a huge impact on the renewal of Wynonna Earp. Emily and the entire cast are amazing. We know they are all very busy with their personal lives as well as their careers; however they all make time to chat with us daily. How many Show Runners do that? Other than Emily, I can’t think of one. I’m not sure how Emily gets any work done, because it seems like she is always on Twitter interacting with her Earpers. I see a whole lot of Wynonna Earp in Emily. She is sassy and sarcastic in such a fun way. I think that’s what I love so much about her. Katherine Barrell not only has her Twitter Account, but she also has an account for her pup, Bernie Barrell, to interact with us. She is sweet, adorable, personable and humorous and I could just keep going on. I absolutely adore her. I kid you not, as I write to you, Kat has returned comments on a couple of my tweets to her. This woman is AMAZING. Shamir Anderson is outgoing, fun, energetic and all around amazing guy. He also has these amazing abs, wow. Just last night Shamir was tweeting and made a personal phone call to one of his fans. That’s not the first time Shamir has taken time to thrill one of his fans with a call. Melanie Scrofano stole my heart at SDCC. We had so many Earpers tweeting and sharing photos and videos that it was like you where there. Watching Melanie interact with her co-stars as well as fans was amazing. Mel is so down to earth, gracious and yet a sarcastic little sh*t like she is on the show. However we were able to see a softer, caring side of her at SDCC as well. Mel held a contest and did a t-shirt swap with one of her fans. She than wore the shirt at SDCC the first day she was there. How awesome is that for the fan? Mel also made it a point to meet up with the Earpers at there first Meet while at SDCC. I can understand why Emily chose Melanie for the role. Dominique Provost-Chalkley, good Lord that is a mouth full, is sweet, lovable and just a delight to watch and tweet with. Her English accent is so adorable. Again, Dom takes the time daily to interact with her fans. I don’t believe their is anyone better to play the role of Waverly, She has the sweet and innocent look down. At least until you put a shotgun in her hands. I love this little Brit. Tim Rozan is just a big kid. His passion for the show and playing Doc. shines through. I’m not sure who enjoys watching the show more, us “Earpers”, or him. He is high energy, funny, has a winning smile and I believe is a little captivated by his fans. It’s easy to see that this cast together is a family and they have accepted this Fandom, the Earpers as part of their extended family.
As a comiccan’t I didn’t feel like one with Bonnie and Kevin tweeting live and the Earpers tweeting and posting pics. It was a lovefest. The cast was humble and engaging and just plain funny
I can’t wait for season 2.
The Earpers are a family and I am honored to be a small part of it.
Excited for season two!
I definitely look forward to seeing more of Kat in season 2, given the way S1 ended I wonder if Nicole will be doing double duty with the PPD and Black Badge or will she move more into the Black Badge realm? While I love WayHaught I also hope we see her with the other characters as the Wynonna-Nicole friendship is great, the Dolls-Haught partnership is fun, and the Doc-Nicole dynamic could breed interesting scenes as well. So much to look forward to after S1 – Waverly’s journey of discovering her Earpness dispite any different birth names, Wynonna’s dark past beyond the town, and Dolls’s mystery to name a few.
Hopefully there will be more seasons coming as well.
I’m so excited that the show got renewed!!! This is a great show with a great cast (and an amazing unicorn of a show runner)!!!! And it’s really cool that it’s based off of my friend’s Step-Dad’d comic!!!! How crazy is that!?! Anyway…. Carry on my #WayHaught girls!!! I can’t wait for Season 2!!!
I have fell in love with Emily, Melanie, Dominique, Kat, Tim and Mr.Anderson 😉 they are so great with the fans. Awesome cast and love that the cast lives each other and gets on so well. I can’t wait for season 2 and wish there were twice as many episodes. It amazes me that our little fandom made such a difference and as a Comicant I look forward to being able to meet the cast and the rest of the #Earper family !
Just finished Wentworth Season 4, and we lost our main character. 😯 When asked what recommendations to offer bereaved fans, I suggested this:
Watch Wynonna Earp and witness the Bury Your Gay Trope get BITCH SLAPPED…real good!
Emily would love that comment DBJean22!
whooaaaa spoillerrrrr
“Watch Wynonna Earp and witness the Bury Your Gay Trope get BITCH SLAPPED…real good!” – here’s to more of this!
I’ve never seen “Wentworth” so I can’t speak to what happened, but I LOVE Emily said basically “Nicole is a cop, she has access to a bulletproof vest, she’s an extremely logical character, the town is going crazy…any sane person would put on a bulletproof vest thus Nicole should wear one because it’s organic to the character and situation. I beat you trope!” even if the PPD coul’d afford vests, I tgink Emily would have said “Screw you trope!” and had Nicole survive after surgery or just been grazed or something. And thank goodness for that!
Here’s hoping more writers take notice; you can have drama for characters without always killing them.
Here’s to Nicole and Waverly making through alive at series end (which hopefully isn’t until more seasons)!
Again I’m excited for the new season. 😀
I loved the show from the beginning, the opening scenes in the Pilot. But it was the WayHaught couple that made Wynonna Earp so special to me. It’s unlike any gay relationshipn I’ve ever seen on TV. Kat Barrell’s Nicole is who I wish I could be. Her representation of a confident, but not at all predatory, lesbian who knows what she wants but is willing to wait for it, is an incredible breath of fresh air. Seeing a lesbian totally comfortable in her own skin is someonebwe can never get enough of. And Dominique Provost-Chalkley, as a young woman questioning her sexuality for the first time, is a revelation. These actors bring such truth to their roles; there’s never a false step. In fact, the entire cast is so special and totally embody their characters. It makes it easy to get involved with the show right from the start. I could write all day about Wynonna Earp but then I’d never get anything done. 😉 So to wrap up, Emily is the show runner of my dreams, and it’s great to know these wonderful characters are in such good hands.