Better with You: Another Family Sitcom on ABC; Cancel or Keep It?

With the success of Modern Family (and to a lesser extent, The Middle), ABC is trying to round out their Wednesday block of comedy. They have several sitcoms in the pipeline and their first candidate, Better with You, has now premiered. Will it find success or, like last year’s Hank, be quickly cancelled?

Better with You revolves around members of the Putney family and their significant others. Maddie and Ben have been happily dating for a long time. They begin to question their choice to not get married when Maddie’s sister gets pregnant by her new boyfriend and they announce their plans for nuptials. The girls’ parents approve of the idea, having taken on a carpe diem approach to life. The sitcom stars Debra Jo Rupp, Jake Lacy, Jennifer Finnigan, Joanna Garcia, Josh Cooke, and Kurt Fuller.

On Wednesday night, Better with You scored a 2.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 7.9 million viewers. That put the series in fourth place for the coveted demo and third place in total viewership. It lost viewers from The Middle lead-in and likely benefited greatly from leading into the return of Modern Family (which got a 5.1 demo rating).

What do you think of Better With You? Keep it! I'm not sure yet. Cancel it! View Results  Loading ...

As is the case with CBS and their successful Monday night sitcoms, networks have high expectations when they team a new show with an already successful one. It’s hard to imagine that ABC is overly happy with the first outing of Better with You but they’ll surely give it some time to see if it catches on.

If the numbers don’t improve however, the execs will quickly start to wonder if they can do better with another new sitcom in that timeslot. We’ll have to wait and see.

But, what do you think? Is Better with You worth watching? Should ABC stick with it or cancel it and try another comedy?