Last week’s was the last scheduled episode of ABC’s sitcom Mr. Sunshine. Though 13 episodes were produced, ABC only aired nine. Starring Matthew Perry, the series took over the Wednesday night timeslot from Cougar Town, which stars another Friends alum, Courteney Cox. How did Perry’s new series perform? Does it have a sunny future or will it be cancelled before it gets a second season?
Mr. Sunshine revolves around Ben Donovan (Perry), the Manager of Operations at San Diego’s Sunshine Center sports arena. His stressful job isn’t made any easier by his crazy boss (Allison Janney), his sleeping with his marketing director (Andrea Anders), his a crazy new assistant (Portia Doubleday), his best friend (James Lesure) or his boss’ less-than-skilled son (Nate Torrence).
After weeks of promotion, the sitcom started off quite strong with a 3.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 10.52 million viewers. Unfortunately, the TV series lost 30% of its audience demo in week two, a pretty good indication that many didn’t like what they saw in the pilot. Week three lost another 15%. Future episodes went up and down a bit but week five dropped a whopping 25% and and the demo number dropped another 33% in week eight. That was a series low of a 1.4 rating.
The nine episodes that have aired averaged a 2.2 rating in the demo and 6.02 million viewers. It’s ABC’s lowest-rated sitcom and, had it stayed on the air any longer, the ratings surely would have kept dropping. It sometimes airs opposite American Idol but so do the other ABC sitcoms and they perform much better.
Based on the ratings, it looks fairly certain that ABC will cancel Mr. Sunshine after one season. ABC sometimes gives a second chance to TV series that have struggled but still show promise. Though Mr. Sunshine has an impressive cast, the show’s been on an overall downward trend from the beginning.
At the January TCA press tour, ABC’s president Paul Lee indicated he was interested in scheduling another night of comedy next season. If that happens, they may decide to renew Mr. Sunshine for a small second season and combine the remaining four unaired episodes with the new ones. ABC has done something similar in the past.
What do you think? Will Mr. Sunshine be cancelled or renewed? Would you like to see it return?
Image courtesy ABC.
Love the show, Matthew is great and I have been waiting for him to come back with something and since I WATCH IT EVERY WEEK THEY WILL GO AND CANCEL IT like every other show that I like that is not in the best time slot.
I love this show and I really hope they keep it. Allison and Matthew are both great in this. Please renew it!
I had high hopes that this series was going to be great, after all it stars Matthew Perry and he used to be so funny in Friends, but as we quickly learn, when he writes his own script he just isn’t that funny. I say to Matthew let other funnier people write your script, your script is just sad and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It actually made me feel embarrassed for him.
I Love this show. It’s witty, droll, intelligent and original. Love the characters/actors.
Wish I was friends with the writers.
I’m so tired of the same rehash of the same old thing. I hope they allow this wonderfully
quirky show time to develop an audience. Remember “Seinfeld” ratings were lousy at
first.
I love the show! Please keep it and show the other episodes.
LOVE this show! It’s one of the 3 that I made sure I didn’t miss each week, and we DVR’d all of them. It’s hard to find a smart, funny show, and I’m sick of reality TV. We need a fresh, good, NEW sitcom. I truly hope it’s scheduled for next season.
God, please keep it ABC.
I was bummed when NBC cancelled “Joey”!!! Don’t do the same!
I loved it! Please keep it. Characters are easy to love. Plot has something to go off of. Please please please keep!
I love the show. I look forward to it every wed. Of course this past week I was really bummed when it wasn’t on. I am sure they will cancel it though, just because I like it, happens to almost every show I like. I hope they don’t fill the slot with some ridiculous reality TV show.
I love, love, love this show. Alison is heee-larious, as are the other characters. I watch it live, on DVR, as well as on the ABC app. It is so well written. It needs to stay on the air or I will have nothing other than Castle. 🙁
I like the quirkyness of this show. Leave it be.
This show lost me when once again, they take a successful black man and pair him up with a white girl. Is this ABC and Hollywood’s trying to tell us that women of color are not good enough for them or anyone else for that matter! My WMU church group has flagged this show “not suitable” and forwarded it to our 20,000 strong group of concerned ladies.
Thanks Again for continuing to degrade us!
@Temekia, It’s a damn tv show and a great one at that. Why does everything have to be so “PC”, they used what worked. Don’t throw at me either that I don’t know what it’s like. Stop always trying to read between the lines and spewing up some racist nonsense, that clearly doesn’t exist. Fill your heart with a little more love and a lot less hate and you may find yourself laughing a little more. I’m sure the execs all sat around and said, “How can we make black women look worse?”. It’s not possible that Andrea Anders fit… Read more »
the whole family loves it,keep it.
The first one i saw was terrible and was a disaster from the first word to the end.
It is hard to believe any sponsor who put money behind this show .
Too bad matthew perry is a decent guy and deserves another chance .
like it very much so of course it will be cancelled–as usual anything that is different & not the same old pablum that plays to the lowest common denominator gets canned–love the razor sharp dry wit & the casting was good–snappy dialog–almost without fail any new show i get hooked on that has an edge to it gets cancelled….hardly worth watching tv anymore–disappointed again & again…………depressing!
Love the show!!!!
my wife & i loved it, it was hilarious….bring it back, cougar town is not funny & over acted poorly, & i for one am sick of the american idol, reality crap, surviror, etc…. Bring back gary unmarried, that show was funny too…