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.
keep Mr. Sunshine. we thought it a very funny show with fabulous cast!! better than some of the shows still on air. PLEASE KEEP MR. SUNSHINE ON!
I beg of you executive people dont take the show off the air its refreshing and so so funny Mr. Perry is awsome…..
please is good show bring it back.
ps. I love the show.
With all the crap on TV-the bad girl junk and the housewives junk-I waited for a good show like this-when I finally found it-it is gonna go? I found his site because I was trying to find out why I couldn’t find the show on my TV show listing. It’s to bad we never got a chance to let this show work into our life-we have to find a show we like and then we need to kinda work around our dialy life schedule and fit in the shows we find that are new- I never even got a chance… Read more »
Boy. Mr. Sunshine isn’t just a sitcom. Though it features lots of comedy factors, it actually is a reflection of, you know, real life and world. And sometimes it even effectively educates us. Don’t cede trust of Ben, ABC.
I love Mr. Sunshine!!
Why can’t 6.02 million people watch something other than abject stupidity. This show was fun and interesting unlike the rest of the dumb ox crap that’s on.
Cancel the show and give Allison Janney something that equals her talent…her role is the only good thing about this show!
Mr. Sunshine is a great TV show. It’s very funny and very enjoyable to watch. I hope they keep this show going. Please don’t let this show die. It’s one of the few shows that is awesome to watch. Please please please keep this show going. The show was great so why let it fade!?!?!?!
I love Mr. Sunshine! Very entertaining.. hope they bring it back.
I think mr sunshine is a great show a Tuesday night would of ben great not as much competition the show had high expectaiotions matt p did great I jus think they should of aired the last couple episodes to see the ratings ep 8 did the worst but its ep 8 obviously not gunna meet ep 1 ratings maybe writers should of let u wanting more at the end of episodes more drama mixed in with the great comedy love the setting and characters please renew this show
Please don’t cancel Mr. Sunshine! It’s a great show – smart, funny… very entertaining!
I really like Mr. Sunshine. The ensemble cast works great together. The concept lends itself to many permutations being centered around an arena.
Keep it on!
Mr Sunshine is one of the funniest sitcoms on tv, there has been very few sitcoms that have the intelligent humor this show has. Maybe that’s the problem? Too intelligent for its viewers? I say keep it rolling…. Good job M.Perry
I don’t know about others, but I did watch this show, along with Modern Family, The Office, The Big Bang Theory, Outsourced, and 30 Rock.
I think they should have given it a little more time.