None of the new comedy series introduced by Fox this season will make it to second season. The network has moved in to cancel freshmen Grandfathered, starring John Stamos, and The Grinder, starring Rob Lowe. They are joined by midseason entries Cooper Barrett’s Guide To Surviving Live and the animated Bordertown, which also are not continuing.
While Bordertown and Cooper Barrett had been written off awhile ago, with Fox downgrading them to lower-trafficked time slots, earlier in the spring, it looked like Fox may renew one of its freshman starring vehicles, Grandfathered, which was a little stronger in the ratings, or The Grinder, which had some of the strongest reviews for a new series this season. For awhile, it looked like a horse race, with The Grinder, fully owned by Fox, and Grandfathered, a co-production with ABC Studios, alternating in taking the lead. But, after evaluating the two shows’ performance and hearing the producers’ ideas for Season 2 while also viewing its pilots for next season, the network brass started leaning toward pulling the plug on both shows in the last few weeks. There were some hopeful signs for Grandfathered in the last couple of days, with talk about tweaking the show,.which is executive produced by top 20th TV-based creator Dan Fogelman, but the network ultimately canceled both shows.
The Grinder, starring Lowe as the former star of a legal show who joins his father and brother’s small-town law firm and co-starring Fred Savage, most recently drew 1.5 million viewers and a 0.5 adults 18-49 rating in Live+same day last week. In Grandfathered, Stamos was a successful bachelor who discovered he was actually a father and a grandfather. Josh Peck co-starred.
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