Accidentally on Purpose: Season or Series Finale? Will it be Cancelled or Renewed?

Tonight’s episode of Accidentally on Purpose marks the final episode of the freshman sitcom’s first season. Will it be the show’s series finale as well?

Accidentally on Purpose follows a thirty-something movie critic (Jenna Elfman) who’s broken up with her charming boss (Grant Show). She ends up having a one-night fling with a much younger man (Jon Foster) and becomes pregnant. She ultimately decides to keep both the baby and the guy. The series also features Lennon Parham, Nicolas Wright, Ashley Jensen, and Pooch Hall.

The sitcom got off to a good start back on September 21, 2009 with 8.99 million viewers and a 3.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic. The numbers started to decline in the next couple of weeks but then came back up.
On Mondays, the show averaged a 3.1 in the all-important demo and 8.23 million viewers. In that same timeslot, Rules of Engagement’s been doing about the same.

For the past couple weeks, CBS has been airing Accidentally on Purpose on Wednesday nights. Without as strong a lead-in as How I Met Your Mother, the sitcom hasn’t been doing as well. In its two weeks of original episodes, Accidentally on Purpose has attracted a 1.9 rating and just 5.97 million viewers. In the same timeslot, Gary Unmarried, averaged a 2.15 rating and 6.65 million viewers.

Should Accidentally on Purpose get a second season? Yes! Are you kidding? Maybe, it's an okay show. Nah. Let it go. View Results  Loading ...

In the end, Accidentally on Purpose has performed either lower or about the same as other sitcoms in the same timeslots. That’s not bad but likely not good enough to get it a second season. If the show had beaten Gary’s or Rules’ ratings then Accidentally on Purpose would have had a much better chance but it didn’t.

CBS isn’t satisfied with how their lower-rated sitcoms are doing, so they’ll want to try at least one or two new ones next season. They already have a new one from Chuck Lorre (The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men) in the works and won’t want to let that go. They have the least invested in in Accidentally on Purpose and it’s essentially the lowest-rated, so will likely be the first to get the axe.

Still, the ratings aren’t that bad and it is produced by CBS’ in-house studio. It could survive, perhaps as a midseason replacement. It just doesn’t look all that likely. We’ll know on May 19th for sure.

Thankfully, tonight we’ll see the birth of Billie’s baby so that means we’ll get some sort of closure, just in case this is indeed that last episode.

What do you think? Should Accidentally on Purpose get a second season? Is it better than some of the other CBS sitcoms? Would you be satisfied with this being the series finale?

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