'About a Boy' Renewed, 'Community', 'Revolution' and More Canceled by NBC
After renewing Hannibal for a third season and picking up four new series, NBC has continued shoring up its lineup for the 2014-2015 broadcast season. This time, it's a big comedy pickup.
NBC has renewed freshman comedy About a Boy for a second season. The show stars David Walton, Benjamin Stockham and Minnie Driver, along with comedian Al Madrigal.
Based on Nick Hornby's 1998 novel of the same and preceded by the 2002 big screen film starring Hugh Grant, the show premiered as a midseason replacement, airing on Tuesdays after The Voice. While critical reception was largely mixed, the show performed admirably in its time slot, averaging between six and eight million viewers per week.
But the renewal of About a Boy isn't really the big news here. Rather, it's the cancellation of one of NBC's most beloved underdog comedies.
Sadly, it's true: NBC has canceled Community after five seasons.
The decision comes after the whole "six seasons and a movie" movement failed to get the show out of the ratings slump that carried over from the critically uneven season four. However, season five was very much a return to form for the series thanks to the return of creator Dan Harmon. If nothing else, the show went out on a high note, although this begs the question of what other comedies with loyal followings NBC could possibly hope to put in Community's time slot, since Lord knows they don't exactly have a sterling track record for allowing first-year comedies to succeed, About a Boy notwithstanding.
Among comedies, we've basically just got Parks and Recreation holding down the Thursday night fort now...although not for much longer. While the show had been granted an early renewal back in March, showrunner Mike Schur declared, in an interview, that he expects the next season of the successful comedy to be its last.
UPDATE: Well, time to change the headline up top, because Revolution has now officially been canceled by NBC after two seasons. The drama, which had been a Monday success last year, took a major hit after taking a four-month midseason hiatus, as the network didn't want to bring it back from break until it could be paired with The Voice. This proved to be its doom, as the show never achieved its incredible early highs again, and only suffered from the move to Wednesdays in Season 2.
UPDATE #2: Add Growing Up Fisher to the cancellation pile. The comedy, starring JK Simmons, has been axed by NBC.
UPDATE #3: After getting pulled from the May schedule, NBC has now confirmed that both Believe and Crisis have been canceled.
Credit: NBC