To no surprise, ABC has cancelled freshman sitcom Hank. The Kelsey Grammer show failed to catch on with critics or many viewers.
Hank revolves around a Wall Street CEO who’s kicked out of his own company and must relocate with his family to his small hometown in Virginia. Aside for Grammer, the series stars Melinda McGraw, David Koechner, Jordan Hinson, and Nathan Gamble.
The sitcom got off to a slow start on September 30th with a 2.1 rating in the demo and 8.34 million total viewers. The numbers got worse from there and last week Hank hit a series low of a 1.3 rating and 5.09 million viewers.
It’s been assumed that the show would be cancelled for awhile now, especially since ABC handed out full season orders to all of its other freshman sitcoms; The Middle, Modern Family, and Cougartown.
ABC confirmed the cancellation of Hank today and said that production is being halted after 10 episodes. The sitcom’s end comes on the heels of the cancellation of another struggling Wednesday night show, Eastwick.
Five episodes of Hank have been aired so far and it’s unclear whether or not the network will get around to showing the remaining five at some point in the future.
For now, Hank’s timeslot will be filled with repeats and specials.
What do you think? Was this show as bad as so many people think? Was there anything that could’ve been done to fix it?
Image courtesy ABC.
It appears the comedy writers and executives at ABC have their heads where the sun never shines. Hank was awful, so are The Middle and Modern Family. Cougar town may survive as long as sex tops their agenda, but it isn’t very funny. As for me, I haven’t watched anything on ABC since Boston Legal. Thank goodness I discovered The Big Bang Theory on CBS, or I’d have no new comedies at all to watch.
It just wasn’t funny.
This show is, in my opinion, too clean and intellectual for many of today’s younger viewers. It seems that dirty, cynical and immoral are the prerequisites for success on the tube. Too bad it is ending!
I just love watching Kelsey Grammer act…..he needs to be in a show with mostlly adults, like Frasier. He is most comical with a variety of very comical men (and women).
Hank WAS a show that was flawed in concept, writing and delivery. Although the concept of fish out of water story line is been done successfully on other TV shows in the past, the creators/writers of HANK created a character that was truly unlikable and unrelateable to most viewers. Most people that watch HANK had zero empathy for his character. When Kelsey Grammer acted in Cheers he was tolerable snob, when he acted un Frasier he was a whiney, pitiful snob, in HANK he was a whiney snob. That is not entertainment. Two ways this show could have been redeemed… Read more »
Hank was the worse show by far on this “sitcom night”… I’m actually glad it’s gone… Cougar town should follow… I mean, Courtney Cox tries to hard and without her 5 “friends” she just can’t pull it off… I like Christa Miller, her sarcasm is fantastic, she was always awesome on Scrubs, and is actually the only good thing in Cougar Town… The Middle is sort of weird, but I kinda like it, even though Neil Flynn’s not using all his potencial… But the little kid cracks me up… Anyway, the only sitcoms I give a thumbs-up to are Modern… Read more »
Hank was just too snobby while the kids and relatives were annoying. I’m from Indiana so I guess I’m bias to the middle and I love modern family. ABC knows what middle America likes.
I loved Kelsey Grammer’s performance but the rest of the cast is where the problem was. There wasn’t any chemistry and the kids were annoying characters rather than quirky and loveable like the script called for. Basically it was cast all wrong.
Plus, the storyline probably was hitting too close to home for many families out there and didn’t bring enough humor to the situation for the audience to find an escape in someone else’s version of the situation.
I think that the show was better then a lot of shows on ABC. The main problem I had was that thry made Hank look like Frasier. At least I had a reason to look at ABC on a Wed night
with Hank gone I will gone also.
They need to bring back Frasier and seinfeld for another 5 years… It will make money…
I can see Kelsey Grammer in the role of a Harvard professor having to deal with the hi jinx of university students. He could still be in the role of a Psychiatrist or Psychologist. David Hyde Pierce could be an occasional visiting colleague as well as Bebe Neuwirth (also a Psychiatrist).
I think Kelsey Grammar is a excellent actor. They really should get the Frasier cast back together. It was the greatest. I have everyone of the dvd’s of his show.
The first episode was moderately amusing and I thought that if the writers settled in, found the characters and the special style of each actor, it could work. Never happened, at least not for me. The final two episodes were downright poor. I kept wondering when they were gloing to pull the plug.
For the record, i sat through the last episode of The Middle without even smiling. Modern Family, maybe. On the whole, a relatively mediocre line-up.
I actually started to watch sitcoms again with Hank. It did make me laugh and I was warming up to the other characters. I hate “The Middle”. Not only does it not make me laugh, I actually hate it. I don’t understand Cougar Town. Seriously. I watched several episode and I have no idea what the show is about. It’s a snoozer. Modern Family has its funny moments, but it has too many characters, therefore no, I don’t watch it anymore either. So….for the entire Wednesday night ABC lineup, Hank was the only show that I watched.
No this show was not bad. You don’t give people a chance to become familiar with the characters before you cancelled it. Most of us still see Kelsey as Frasier and since there will never be another sitcom as good as Frasier, it takes us awhile to get used to him as another character. Maybe if the network really wants a hit, team Kelsey up with the old cast of Frasier and bring Frasier back. This would be a win for all of us.