Is Abby’s renewed for season 2, canceled at NBC following finale?
Following tonight’s Abby’s finale on NBC, we wouldn’t be too optimistic about the idea of visiting the outdoor bar another time. After all, NBC has decided not to pick up the show for another season and it’s closing time.
What’s the reasoning? It’s fairly simple — the ratings just aren’t up to snuff. The first season so far has averaged a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and then also just under 1.7 million viewers, which puts it technically behind another canceled NBC show in AP Bio — we know that there’s a good effort to revive the latter, but we don’t foresee a movement happening with Abby’s to the same degree.
From the jump, we actually did have optimism that this show could’ve been something big. It features a very funny lead in Santa Clarita Diet’s Natalie Morales, it has Mike Schur on board as an executive producer, and it also has Scrubs/The Middle alum Neil Flynn in the cast. Also, the idea of shooting a traditional sitcom outdoors was such a cool, interesting idea — we like some of the work that was done in order to shake up a form of comedy that is often cut-and-dry. It just didn’t work to attract many viewers. This is not a case of a show starting off with huge ratings and struggling to maintain them for most of the season; the ratings were just never really there. It premiered to a 0.5 rating and even if it’d held that for the entire season, there’s still a chance it would have been canceled.
Ultimately, some of the onus falls here on NBC for not finding a way to promote Abby’s better, including premiering it at a time in the late spring where it’s infinitely harder to launch shows than in the fall. It never had enough promotion, and it really didn’t get much of a chance to succeed. Maybe if it had been a fall show or had more of a campaign, there could have been a proper chance for it to grow.
Was the first season of Abby’s perfect? Not exactly, but remember that the first season of Parks and Recreation wasn’t fantastic, it really took The Office until season 2 to establish consistency and Seinfeld didn’t really hit its stride creatively for a couple of years. Sometimes, great comedy takes time and it takes a network willing to believe in the show enough to keep it around. Maybe we’re in an era now where this sort of thing is a little more difficult … or maybe the belief just wasn’t there for Abby’s in the first place. It’s hard to point out the precise reason why this show didn’t work, other than that it couldn’t figure out a way to make the magic happen.
Do you want to see an Abby’s season 2 happen somewhere still, even with the cancellation in mind/ Be sure to share now in the comments.