Sit Down, Shut Up: FOX Pulls Animated Series, Essentially Cancelled?

FOX tried to pass off Mitchell Hurwitz’s new animated series as an apology for cancelling the much-loved but little-watched Arrested Development. Unfortunately, though some of the talent might be the same, Sit Down, Shut Up clearly isn’t in the same league.

Sit Down, Shut Up is an animated comedy that revolves around the teachers and administrators at John Muir High School in Gainesville, Florida. Based on a live-action show from Australia, it stars the vocal talents of Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Will Forte, Tom Kenny, Nick Kroll, Kristin Chenoweth, Cheri Oteri, Kenan Thompson, and Henry Winkler.

The series has received overall negative reviews and poor ratings. The premiere attracted just 5.21 million viewers with a 2.3/6 among adults age 18-49. In week two, Sit Down, Shut Up fell to 4.2 million and a 1.9/5. FOX then moved it from Sundays at 8:30pm to 7pm. To no surprise the numbers got even worse.

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Though there’s little chance that Sit Down, Shut Up will be back for a second season, FOX didn’t even want to wait for the show to finish its first. They’ve pulled the fifth scheduled installment, titled “Math Lab,” from Sunday’s schedule. The action may be due to ratings, the episode’s content (a meth lab), or a combination of the two. In any case, the network hasn’t made any indication that the show will return anytime in the future.

There are reportedly 13 completed episodes of Sit Down, Shut Up, so this leaves nine episodes unaired. With that many on the shelf, FOX may burn them off sometime in the future or, more likely, or they could just forget about them.

The network sometimes posts extra episodes online so they may show up there or they’ll eventually show up on DVD, likely once the public has had a chance to forget the negative reviews.