Hank Azaria’s cancellation suspicions were correct. Last night’s episode of Free Agents didn’t fare any better in the ratings and NBC has now cancelled the sitcom after four episodes.
In the TV series, Alex (Hank Azaria) is newly divorced and trying to keep himself together. Alex’s co-worker Helen (Kathryn Hahn) drinks too much because she’s trying to cope with her fiance Pete’s untimely passing. The two overworked public relations executives share an ill-fated night of passion and are forced to cope with the awkward aftermath. While Alex and Helen try to figure out their lives and potential relationship, their co-workers at the PR firm of Hale Dayton Associates try to do anything to get them back into the dating game. Others in the show include Anthony Head, Mo Mandel, Al Madrigal, Natasha Leggero, and Joe Lo Truglio.
Free Agents was given a special post-America’s Got Talent debut, along with fellow newbie Up All Night. Even though it was getting healthy lead-in support, Agents had a lackluster premiere with a 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 6.12 million viewers. The following week, in its usual 8:30pm timeslot, the demo fell 38% to a 1.3 rating. Last week’s fell another 23%, to terrible 1.0 rating and just 3.07 million viewers. Last night’s were as low.
The sitcom now averages a 1.4 demo rating, the same as now-cancelled Playboy Club. The way the numbers have been going, that average would continue to drop. NBC apparently realized that things weren’t going to get any better and decided to cancel the series.
There’s no word yet on what will become of the remaining unaired episodes of Free Agents but NBC will fill the timeslot with repeats of Whitney. It’s unknown how many episodes were completed but word is that production was abruptly shut down in the middle of the day.
What do you think? Are you sorry to hear that Free Agents is the second cancellation? Was it worth watching?
UPDATED: Two of the stars have tweeted about the cancellation:
Hank Azaria: “Thanks to NBC for giving us a shot, thanks to all who watched Free Agents, and thanks to all who worked on the show- we had so much fun!!”
Mo Mandel: “That’s it, #FreeAgents has been cancelled. Our ratings went up from all the tweets but not enough. Thanks to everyone who watched! Luv Dan”
Image courtesy NBC.
[…] in the 18-49 demographic, despite much stronger lead-ins. For whatever reason, audiences just rejected this […]
Bummer. Liked this one, thought the cast had good chemistry.
It deserved more of a chance, not all of the great shows were hits right from the start. And to shut down production in the middle of the day kinda shows the studio didn’t really have much love.
It was a good Show!!!!! Shame on the network for cancelling !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I loved it! Smart, funny, one of the best casts on TV. I never worried for a second that it wouldn’t live on for many years to come. Thank God I taped the episodes that did run and I’ll be first in line if they come out with a dvd of the rest. SOMEBODY PICK THIS WONDERFUL SHOW UP SO IT HAS A CHANCE OF BUILDING A FAN BASE. (Does any one remember a “little” show called CHEERS that was nearly canceled it’s first season???) This is the 2nd show I’ve LOVED recently that’s been ripped right out from under… Read more »
Call NBC but get them to put Hank Azaria in as the new manger on The Office!!
I thought it was worthy of a chance to develop a fan-base – it was really good! My heart goes out to Hank Azaria, he actually asked people to call NBC and tell the network to keep the show! I hope he has something new soon – he’s adorable (and talented)!
I heard “various comedy repeats” are expected to fill the slot. I don’t know why they don’t just continue to air Free Agents there. I mean, they already paid for the episodes, so they might as well show ’em, and who needs more repeats? Really??
Kat » Because Free Agents’ ratings are so low that repeats will probably perform better and might lead to more people watching whichever show is being repeated. There’s no benefit to them to keep running Free Agents.
STUPID reasoning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Jay » It would be except NBC needs to make money, to benefit the regular people who own stock in the company.
Yes, it wasn’t as good as Up all night or Whitney, but it was still funny. That sucks. I’m not watching another new fox show, NBC is on their way there too.