“Wynonna Earp” premiered on Syfy on April 1, 2016, and ran four seasons and 49 episodes before signing off on April 9, 2021. Emily Andras developed it from Beau Smith’s comic book series. Melanie Scrofano plays Wynonna, the great-great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp, who comes home to Purgatory, near the Canadian Rockies, and inherits the family curse.
The premise is a good one. On her 27th birthday, Wynonna gains the power to send revenants — the reincarnated outlaws Wyatt killed — back to Hell, using her ancestor’s gun, “Peacemaker.” She fights to break the family curse, and she fights everything else that lives in the Ghost River Triangle, the cursed territory that holds Purgatory.
Trailer, via Seriendario Com.
The Black Badge Division and Doc Holliday
The show does not stay a lone-gunslinger story for long. The Black Badge Division, a secret government agency run by Special Agent Xavier Dolls, recruits Wynonna. She picks up an ageless Doc Holliday, played by Tim Rozon, and her sister Waverly, played by Dominique Provost-Chalkley. Deputy Nicole Haught, played by Katherine Barrell, helps the team from inside the Purgatory sheriff’s office. Greg Lawson plays Sheriff Randy Nedley. Varun Saranga plays Jeremy Chetri.
That mix is where “Wynonna Earp” finds its footing. A Western about a cursed bloodline is one thing. A Western where the cursed bloodline has a government handler and a squad of people who cannot stand each other is a better one. The posse is dysfunctional by design, and the show knows it.
Four Seasons, Four Escalations
Season one centers on the revenants who kidnapped Wynonna’s older sister Willa, and on Bobo Del Rey, who leads the local revenants. Season two gives Wynonna a pregnancy and gives Waverly a demonic possession and doubts about her own lineage, while two widows of the dead sheriff who cursed Wyatt Earp try to bring him back.
Season three resurrects the demon Clootie, who hunts the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and the team has to stop the apocalypse that follows. Season four splits the group apart: Wynonna and Nicole work to rescue Doc and Waverly, and when the rescue comes, the ones who return find they were gone longer than they thought. Wynonna goes looking for Peacemaker.
The fourth season had a hard road. It was renewed in July 2018, then sat in limbo for months over financial trouble at production company IDW Entertainment. The first half finally aired July 26, 2020. In February 2021, Syfy said the fourth season would be the last, and the second half began March 5, 2021.
A Tubi Special and a Verdict
“Wynonna Earp” did not end for good in 2021. In February 2024, Tubi commissioned a one-off special, “Wynonna Earp: Vengeance,” which premiered September 13, 2024. Scrofano, Rozon, Provost-Chalkley, Barrell, Lawson, Dani Kind and Varun Saranga all came back.
That return says something about what the show built. Four seasons is a short run for a series with this much mythology, and the limbo and the cancellation both read as business failures rather than creative ones. The demon-of-the-week machinery is the weakest part. Clootie and the Garden of Eden arc is a lot of apocalypse for a show whose best asset is a woman with a magic gun trading insults with her sister.
The part that lasts is the cast and the family at the center of it. Scrofano carries the curse like a job she never applied for. Provost-Chalkley and Barrell make Waverly and Nicole the show’s steady heart. Rozon’s Doc Holliday is the right kind of tired.
This is a 6.8 of 10. Not a great show. A stubborn one, and stubborn was enough to bring it back.
The Hard Numbers
- Score: 6.8 of 10 (Metacritic 68/100)
- Network: Syfy, Space, CTV Sci-Fi Channel
- Run: 4 seasons, 49 episodes
- First aired: April 1, 2016
- Last aired: April 9, 2021
- Special: “Wynonna Earp: Vengeance,” premiered September 13, 2024, on Tubi
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