It's been a rather busy Friday afternoon in TV land as several networks have made some serious decisions regarding their new shows this season.
On the cancellation front, NBC has axed struggling police procedural remake Ironside and comedy Welcome to the Family. Both shows failed to gather an audience despite posting fairly decent premiere ratings.
Ironside had considerable amounts of promos and hype to boast its premiere but putting popular star Blair Underwood in a wheelchair just didn't help the cause. The drama faced tough competition in its Wednesday night timeslot with the perennial favorite CSI and ABC's country sudser Nashville. The real nail in the coffin came last week when FX's American Horror Story: Coven premiered to smashing numbers in the 10 pm timeslot and took a nice chunk of audience away from network television. Ironside also faced some creative backlash for not casting a disabled actor in the role of paraplegic Robert Ironside. The negative press helped detract some audiences from even giving the show a chance. Honestly though, the drama's case-of-the-week format was pretty dull and slow that Ironside's wheelchair moved faster than the plot. The final episode airs October 23.
Welcome to the Family was another unfortunate sacrifice that the network had to make due to low numbers. Stuck in the 8:30 pm timeslot, the family comedy based on unplanned teenage pregnancy couldn't hack it against CBS' new comedy The Millers. While the premise isn't necessarily the best, it was something different but a soft cast didn't help the situation. Don't get us wrong, we love Mike O'Malley but he needed a better co-star foil in this production. Additionally, most of NBC's new comedies are struggling, especially much touted, heavily advertised Sean Saves the World and The Michael J. Fox Show. If a decision had to be make to stop the network from losing more blood, it was apparent that the show on the bottom of the totem pole was getting cut.
CBS, on the other hand, is doing a little better with its new comedies. The network has just given full-season orders to freshman comedies Mom, The Crazy Ones, and The Millers. Apparently dysfunctional comedies about recovering alcoholics and divorced parents are drawing the audiences. Each show has received the order for the "back 9" episodes, which would make the full season count to 22 episodes.
FOX has also picked up a full-season order for freshman police comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which has posted solid numbers since its debut. Additionally it will join New Girl for a special comedy hour after Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014.
Death List
Lucky 7 (ABC)
We are Men (CBS)
Murder Police (FOX)
Us & Them (FOX)
Ironside (NBC)
Welcome to the Family (NBC)
Life Support
Betrayal (ABC)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC)
Super Fun Night (ABC)
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