Emmy-Winning PBS Kids Show Canceled

One of the most beloved and long-running series on PBS Kids is coming to an end.

Children’s series Molly of Denali will end after its upcoming fifth season. The critically-acclaimed series has previously won several awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody Award.

The news comes in the wake of President Trump’s crackdown on federal funding for NPR and PBS—including the cancellation of PBS’s Ready-to-Learn grant, which has federally funded education in America since 1992.

Molly of Denali is well-loved around the globe, but especially in Alaska for its positive depiction of the state’s indigenous culture.

Series writer Vera Starbard, however, told KTOO there’s more to the series’ cancellation.

“What I don’t want is for a show this great and this exceptional to be put into this very polarized political lens of ‘it’s x person that did it. It’s this x action that did it,’” she said. “It’s actually a lot of sort of typical television reasons combined with, yes, I do think [the] funding atmosphere that has been tough for a while, political atmospheres, those all for sure contribute to the much bigger reasons.”

The end of the series, which won its first Emmy earlier this year, is bittersweet to Starbard.

“It was just sort of a mix of emotions, hearing about it, being proud that we accomplished this thing all together, at the same time knowing it’s potentially over,” she said.

Molly of Denali will still continue to air new episodes throughout all of this year.