Last week, ABC debuted one of this season's few new series, Abbott Elementary. The school-set comedy receives its initial prediction in this week's Renew/Cancel, while I take another look at one of Abbott's fellow comedies amid a recent comment by one of the show's leads.
Certain Cancellation:
N/A
Likely Cancellation:
Queens (0.30, 0.26-0.36)
Leans Cancellation:
Home Economics (0.34, 0.29-0.41)
A Million Little Things (0.28, 0.23-0.31)
Leans Renewal:
Abbott Elementary (0.63)
Big Sky (0.33, 0.30-0.37)
The Goldbergs (0.58, 0.49-0.70)
The Rookie (0.32, 0.30-0.36)
The Wonder Years (0.46, 0.34-0.67)
Coming Soon:
Maggie
Promised Land
Women of the Movement
Abbott Elementary: It's hard to gauge a new show's future prospects off of just a single episode. It's even harder when that single episode was a one-off preview for a show that won't debut in its official time slot for nearly a month. And yet, here I am, making a debut prediction for Abbott Elementary after just that. In a vacuum, its 0.63 premiere is quite a solid start, rating a full tenth above the league average. However, I can't be too confident in its future for many reasons. First among them is that this is actually lower than what The Wonder Years premiered to earlier this year, and we know how that's ended up. Another reason? It's nearly certain that Abbott will never again see a lead-in as strong as Live In Front of A Studio Audience, which grabbed a 0.96 for its third special on Tuesday, leading directly into Abbott. With a "Judge Steve" lead-in that should be significantly lower than 0.96, Abbott is likely to falter. How much it falters is what will ultimately determine its fate. As of now, things look good, and it LEANS RENEWAL. I'll have plenty more to say when it resumes its run in January.
The Goldbergs: Much discussion was made in last week's comment section about this show, which has been a big subject of discussion lately for an unpleasant reason. I had other shows to focus on last week, but now I have time to address it. A few weeks ago, an article was run featuring an interview with Goldbergs patriarch Jeff Garlin. In that interview, it was revealed that Garlin was subject to numerous HR reports on the set of the show. While none of them seem as serious as incidents that have gotten actors fired from other shows, it's still a bit troubling. Most troubling for the show itself, however, was a quote by Garlin indicating that he doesn't think the show is going to last past its current ninth season. That's quite damning, especially considering that storylines on the show do indicate that the end is nigh. I'm not yet sure how to factor this into my predictions, as actors who don't produce or write for their shows rarely know when a show is actually ending, and this may be nothing more than one person's opinion on the show's longevity. For now, I'm not chaining my prediction, but I have a lot of thinking to do about the future of this show, which, ratings-wise, should be a clear renewal. It LEANS RENEWAL for now.
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
