Before Arrow came to an end on January 28, 2020, the series’ penultimate episode served as a backdoor pilot for the planned Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff. However, over a year after that same-named episode aired, it was confirmed that the spinoff was not moving forward, which still annoys me nearly half a decade later. Adding insult to injury, it turns out Green Arrow and the Canaries could have included another Black Canary to join the existing two, with this one also being a familiar face from the DC TV space.
From 2007 to 2011, Supernatural and Stargate: Universe actress Alaina Huffman appeared in six episodes of Smallville as the Dinah Lance version of Black Canary. While speaking with CBR, Huffman revealed that she tried to get involved with Green Arrow and the Canaries to reprise her character, saying:
At one point, the Berlanti world was gonna do a spin-off of the Black Canary from Arrow, and I made a pitch, ‘cause they we're gonna do a bunch of different versions of the Black Canary.
Taking place in the year 2040, the Green Arrow and the Canaries backdoor pilot saw Julianna Harkavy’s Dinah Drake and Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance from the original Earth-2 ending up in the future and teaming up with Katherine McNamara’s Mia Smoak, who inherited the Green Arrow mantle from her father. Those three characters all hailed from the same universe, but including Alaina Huffman’s Black Canary would have added a multiverse component. The multiverse was recreated at the end of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, and while there were some notable changes, this serves as further confirmation that Earth-167, where Smallville takes place, was reborn.
While it doesn’t sound like Alaina Huffman’s involvement in Green Arrow and the Canaries was quite nailed down before the project was scrapped, she did have an idea about how her Black Canary could have been utilized, saying:
I thought it would be really, really cool to play, like, the den mother of the Canaries, just sort of playing that OG Black Canary role... It would be kind of neat to play [Black Canary] at a different phase in her life.
With Julianna Harkavy, Katie Cassidy and Katherine McNamara’s characters all being active in the field, I agree that it would have been interesting for Huffman’s Dinah to be used as more of a mentor and behind-the-scenes participant. Had Green Arrow and the Canaries moved forward, this also could have allowed for more Smallville crossovers, even though it’d been revealed in “Crisis” that Tom Welling’s Clark Kent gave up his powers. Still, that’s no reason why other characters from the series that ran from 2001-2011 couldn’t have guest starred, like perhaps Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow.
Alas, Green Arrow and the Canaries ultimately never saw the light of day, and the main Arrowverse continuity concluded in 2023 with The Flash’s final season. It continues to bother me how those lingering plot threads from the backdoor pilot will never be resolved, and now it’s a shame we’ll also never get to see this “den mother” dynamic that Alaina Huffman envisioned.
