TV Host Reveals His Acclaimed Show Was Secretly Canceled

By John Connor Coulston

When G4TV went down, it took a lot of promising shows with it. One program that only aired one season before Comcast shuttered the network was Invitation to Party. The series, which aired a total of 12 episodes, will go down in history as TV's first tabletop gaming series. Invitation to Party, which combined TTRPG gameplay sequences with improvised acting performances, was acclaimed by fans, with host B. Dave Walters' storytelling being the focal point of much praise. After the news of G4's shutdown broke, Walters confessed to fans that the beloved show was quietly canceled in early 2022.

While the Dungeons & Dragons-sponsored show was MIA from G4's schedule throughout most of 2022 as other shows carried on, many fans had just assumed it was on an annual cycle, like most shows on television. After all, the network had landed some new hits, such as Name Your Price and Arena, which took up some of the G4 team's bandwidth in addition to Attack of the Show! and Xplay-related productions. However, it appears G4 quietly axed Invitation to Party and Walters parted ways with the network. In an open-hearted Twitter thread, TV's first dungeon master opened up about the "crushing defeat" he processed in private in the wake of the cancellation.

"Between landing ITP and some other things that came along with it, I thought ALL my dreams had come true. Everything I'd ever wanted *in life* was finally here," Walters wrote. "At Christmas I was riding higher than I had in my entire life, by February it was all ashes. To be clear: I claim no mistreatment at or by G4 at all, just the catastrophic mismanagement that tied the hands of some truly talented people. A lot of those people are hurting now. And, as you may suspect: The people who truly wrecked the ship – if the ship ever had a true captain – will suffer no consequences whatsoever. They'll continue to fail upwards while the people who really tried day to day to make something happen are left with nothing.

"For me, I was *so proud* of being the first DM on TV. I still am. I was a lot less proud basically being the first show to go 'on hiatus' (i.e.: Get cancelled) and basically be the first host out the door. I'd be lying if I said I'm completely over it now. Any time I've tweeted this year about 'making no mistakes and still losing,' this is what I'm talking about almost every time. I poured my heart and soul into making Invitation to Party something special, and we succeeded; only to have it killed by arbitrary trust fund whim."

Walters went on to praise the Invitation to Party team and publicly said farewell to the project. "I was blessed to work with some of the most brilliant talent I've ever met on both sides of the camera," he wrote. "I will just say for me G4 represented my greatest victory and greatest defeat, all in one. It has strained even my legendary optimism to get truly excited about anything since, since it was made abundantly clear yet again that hard work and going above and beyond by no means guarantees success. At least I can finally say: Goodbye Invitation to Party. We hardly knew ye."

He added, "The thing that finally helped me was realizing that seasons 2 and 3 of Invitation to Party weren't taken from me, but instead it was a blessing to have gotten to do the one. Once I found a way to wrap it in gratitude, the whole thing became a lot easier to carry."

Invitation to Party Season 1's campaign was titled "The Scoundrels of Waterdeep" and featured a group of adventurers — played by Kassem G, Indiana "Frosk" Black, Fiona Nova and Ify Nwadiwe — out to unmask a group of anonymous overlords. Along to way, new personalities joined the cast, including actor Freddie Prinze Jr. and AOTS! co-host Gina Darling. All episodes were livestreamed on Twitch/YouTube before airing on linear television. As of press time, they're still available to watch in full on YouTube. (We recommend using the official playlist, as the network curiously uploaded episodes to both the Xplay channel and an official Invitation to Party account.)

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