American Gods was a big hit, widely considered to have perfectly captured Neil Gaiman’s novel and being one of the most stylish looking shows on TV. After its first season did so well, you’d assume that putting together a second would be a piece of cake. Sadly, however, it hasn’t gone quite to plan, with showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green departing after they clashed with Neil Gaiman about the future direction of the series.
We now have Jesse Alexander of Hannibal and Star Trek: Discovery taking up their reins, but with the second season set to air in March, many will be wondering about what we might be missing. Well, we now have some insight into just that. Bryan Fuller opened up on his Twitter account recently and in a now-deleted Tweet, explained the following:
“Me and [Green] never abandoned American Gods. We were dedicated to cast, crafted the season, wrote 5 episodes, even had Media as Mr. Rogers & Princess Leia. We were in the process of reducing scope due to a dramatic budget reduction when we were fired.”
For those unfamiliar with the show, Media is one of the ‘modern’ Gods that face off against the older ones. Played by Gillian Anderson in season 1, she’s the personification of mass media and entertainment. In the first run, we saw her pop up in I Love Lucy, as Judy Garland in Easter Parade, Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie and Marilyn Monroe. It’s sounding as if this neat visual trick would have continued on as well, and I’m mainly annoyed that seeing Gillian Anderson dressed up as Princess Leia is going to be something that’s going to have to exist in my imagination. Not to mention it would have been a nice tribute to Carrie Fisher, too.
Perhaps due to budgetary constraints, she’ll be played by Kahyun Kim in season 2, now that she’s evolved into ‘New Media.’ It’s a definite downgrade (sorry Kahyun Kim, but it’s true), but I hope American Gods manages to capture the first season’s creative wizardry even with a lower budget.
