The New Adventures of Old Christine: TV Show Cancelled, No Season Six?

After being on the bubble for several seasons, CBS has finally cancelled The New Adventures of Old Christine. There’s a chance that it may be saved by another network but odds would have been better if this had happened in previous years.

The New Adventures of Old Christine follows the challenges of Christine Campbell (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) , a neurotic single mom who has a hard time finding a relationship and juggling her responsibilities at home and work. Others in her life include her low-key brother, Matthew (Hamish Linklater); best friend and business partner, Barbara (Wanda Sykes); young son Ritchie (Trevor Gagnon); irresponsible ex-husband, Richard (Clark Gregg); and his current love, “New Christine” (Emily Rutherfurd). Often popping up to make “Old Christine” feel even more incompetent are “mean mommies,” Marly and Lindsay (Tricia O’Kelley and Alex Kapp Horner).

After being part of CBS’ Monday night line-up for two seasons, Old Christine was used to help establish a second comedy block for the network on Wednesday nights. Unfortunately, the experiment wasn’t a big success. Old Christine was barely renewed last season. As there had been in the past, there was talk that ABC might pick it up if CBS had actually cancelled the show.

This season, Old Christine’s numbers have gotten worse and CBS decided to abandon the Wednesday night comedy hour. As a result, the network decided to finally cancel Old Christine.

In past years, Old Christine was attractive to ABC because they weren’t having much success with their own sitcoms. This time around, they already have a well-established night of sitcoms and several new options waiting in the wings.

Still, there is some talk of ABC picking up the series. As of today, the execs at ABC and Warner Bros. are trying to work out the numbers. The deal that Warner Bros. can offer is likely being impacted by how much profit new episodes will bring in syndication.

Last summer, Warner Bros. sold the Old Christine syndication package to Lifetime for some ad time and about $350,000 per episode (compared to 30 Rock episodes which went for $800,000). The sitcom was also sold to local stations in most of the US markets.

Reruns will pop up on cable and local stations in the fall. It remains to be seen if new episodes will be on ABC.

What do you think? Should ABC rescue The New Adventures of Old Christine? Where would you put it — with The Middle, Cougar Town, or someplace else?