10 Hyped 2020 TV Shows ALREADY Cancelled

7. Jane The Novela

Thanks to a combination of sharp, quick-witted writing and the winning charm of lead actress Gina Rodriguez, Jane The Virgin did an impressive job of having its cake and eating it too, both revelling in, and simultaneously poking fun at, the absurd and unlikely twists and turns of hispanic telenovelas.

The self-aware metafictional nature of a story about a writer of soapy melodrama living a life straight out of a telenovela had already led to the publication of a spinoff novel purporting to be the "autobiographical" historical romance written by Jane within the show.

So, with the parent show coming to an end in 2019 after 100 episodes, it felt like the CW network already had the perfect template for a TV follow-up for 2020.

Written by Jane The Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman (also behind the CW's Latina reboot of Charmed) and with Rodriguez attached as both producer and narrator, Jane The Novela was to be an anthology series "adapting" Jane's pulpy novels.

A pilot was filmed in the spring with a cast including Marcia Cross, no stranger to witty soap opera pastiche after Desperate Housewives, but the CW passed on taking it to series with the network's president noting that it lacked the quirky, offbeat fun of its predecessor.