NBC has not officially cancelled “Sean Saves the World,” but halting production on a low-rated comedy with four episodes remaining in its order is not a sign of confidence.
News of the “Sean Saves the World” production half came on Tuesday (January 28) evening, but it won’t impact fans of the show for a while. In its last original airing, “Sean Saves the World” averaged only 2.6 million viewers and did a woeful 0.7 rating among adults 18-49, but “Sean” wasn’t scheduled to air another new episode until late February after the Olympics.
The math goes like this: NBC had ordered 19 “Sean” episodes (including the pilot) and 15 were shot (again, including the pilot). As of last week, NBC had aired 13 episodes, which leaves two episodes, that will likely air at some point after the Olympics, but it’s unclear what that would actually mean.
At the TCA press tour last week, I asked NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt about his feeling about the struggles of “The Michael J. Fox Show.” In his answer, he also addressed “Sean Saves the World.”
“Well, we”re, obviously, not happy about a 0.6 for any show and especially for Michael J. Fox,” Greenblatt said. “We like that show. We like Sean Hayes” show a lot. Creatively, we think they”re good shows, and we”re really unhappy that we can”t find an audience for them in those time periods. So we”re going to still work hard to see what we can do on Thursday nights. It is a real, real uphill battle. The future of the show? Obviously, we have to see how it plays out for the next few months and then get in the scheduling room and make some hard decisions. It”s not anywhere near where we”d like it to be.”
“The Michael J. Fox Show” was given a 22 episode commitment when it was ordered and there’s very little chance NBC is going to do anything with that one.
As tends to happen these days, the stars of “Sean Saves the World” took to Twitter after the news started breaking.
“Thanks to @SeanSavesWorld actors & crew & @NBC for a wonderful opportunity. Looking forward to Obama’s minimum wage increase to $10/hr,” tweeted Sean Hayes.
Echo Kellum also caught the State of the Union fever tweeting, “After this Sean Saves the World news, I sure hope @BarackObama talks about JOBS! #SOTU #SSTW #WillActForFood.”
Megan Hilty tweeted, “Thanks for all the kind words about the cancelation of #SSTW. I’m a lucky lady to have gotten to work with such an incredible cast & crew!”
Remember that no network ever officially uses the “c” word — “cancelled,” you perv — until May at the upfronts, but we can be honest: There’s a 99.999999 percent chance that “Sean Saves the World” is going to be cancelled.
Will you miss “Sean Saves the World”?