Walker star Jared Padalecki is firing back at The CW after the network unceremoniously cancelled Walker and most of its other shows, including All-American: Homecoming and many, many more.
Padalecki isn’t unfamiliar to The CW; at one point, he was one of the poster children of the network due to starring on the long-running series Supernatural. But now, after feeling the sting of Walker’s cancellation due to the network’s new management under Nexstar, Padalecki called out the network for focusing on “really easy, cheap content that they could fill up time with.”
“They’re just changing the network around, where it’s not really going to be a TV network as much as it’s going to be, ‘Here’s something fun for an hour that you’ll never watch again, but hopefully you watch it. And it’s cheap!'” he said in a recent interview with Variety. “And I hate to say that, but I’m being honest. I mean f**k it. They can’t fire me again. I’m just being brutally honest. I think it felt to me like they were looking for really easy, cheap content that they could fill up time with.”
Padalecki talked more about Nexstar’s new direction for The CW, saying, “My understanding–and again, this is just what I’m told–that Nexstar is going in a different direction with The CW. I mean, they have an hour of Trivial Pursuit and an hour of Scrabble coming up. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just download the app or grab a board game and play with your friends.”
He ended by referencing his time on Supernatural, saying, “What’s that great quote? It’s like, ‘If somebody tells you who they are, ask questions. If somebody shows you who they are, believe them.’ …The CW that I was a part of last year is not The CW that I was a part of under [former chairman and CEO] Mark Pedowitz for that entire, almost 20-year stretch.”
Right now, the original All American series is the only old The CW show that currently exists on the network. It has been renewed for Season 7, but its future beyond that is unknown.