The NBC Renew/Cancel is back to discuss a trio of low-rated comedies that just debuted this week on the Peacock network. Keep reading for my initial take on Kenan, plus my thoughts on the time slot debuts of American Auto and Grand Crew!
Certain Cancellation:
Ordinary Joe (0.35, 0.25-0.52)
Leans Cancellation:
American Auto (0.34, 0.27-0.36)
Grand Crew (0.33, 0.30-0.40)
Kenan (0.32, 0.26-0.36)
Leans Renewal:
The Blacklist (0.33, 0.29-0.39)
Likely Renewal:
N/A
Certain Renewal:
Law & Order: Organized Crime (0.57, 0.50-0.67)
Saturday Night Live (0.94, 0.82-1.04)
Already Renewed:
Chicago Fire
Chicago Med
Chicago PD
La Brea
Law & Order: SVU
New Amsterdam
Already Canceled/Final Season:
This Is Us
Coming Soon:
The Endgame
Mr. Mayor
The Thing About Pam
Transplant
Young Rock
Kenan: After tying its series low for the Christmas special, which was relatively understandable, Kenan returned in even worse shape this week for its official season two premiere, which aired at 8 PM, anchoring the Monday lineup. The show is airing as an hour-long double-episode block, which feels a bit like NBC trying to burn it off ahead of the Olympics. The 8 PM episode, which had the benefit of the local lead-in, attracted just a 0.34 in the demo, and things got even worse at 8:30, where it fell to a 0.26. We knew last season that this show was weak, but it's looking even weaker this season, having set two new series lows already in just three episodes. NBC couldn't have expected much from it, or from any of their comedies, but surely they wanted more than this. They love Kenan Thompson, who is one of the brightest stars of one of TV's biggest shows, Saturday Night Live, and they love Lorne Michaels, the SNL creator who produces Kenan. I don't know if that love is enough to save Kenan, because that's about all it has going for it. Any potential it showed early on in season one is now gone, and the show is a huge drag on NBC at this point. I wrongly guessed cancellation last season, which has me skeptical of a repeat cancellation prediction, but I can't justify any other prediction after such an awful debut. It LEANS CANCELLATION.
American Auto: Speaking of flop NBC comedies... American Auto. I ripped this show to shreds after its hour-long post-Voice premiere that saw the show slip to a 0.27 in its second episode. Its time slot premiere rating this Tuesday showed little additional promise. While 0.39 is certainly better than what Auto premiered to last month, it's still not promising for what is essentially the premiere of a new comedy. It's likely going to slip from here, and while I don't think NBC can cancel all of their flop comedies (which is... all of them but Young Rock), the data alone points to this being a cancellation. I think it's a more likely renewal than a few others on the NBC lineup, thanks to NBC's working relationship with creator Justin Spitzer (who gave them a very rare long-running comedy success story in Superstore), but it's still an underdog for renewal at this point. It LEANS CANCELLATION.
Grand Crew: Looking the least likely to return of any of NBC's comedies is Grand Crew. It's not notably weaker than Kenan or American Auto, but it does seem to have the least going in its favor. It's not created by or produced by any huge creative names for NBC (though its creator is a former Brooklyn Nine-Nine producer/writer), it has the least favorable scheduling, and it's also slightly lower-rated than its fellow newbie American Auto. A 0.3 for its official premiere is far from encouraging, even if its lead-in didn't provide it much support. It LEANS CANCELLATION 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!
