The Paul Reiser Show: How Soon Before It’s Cancelled?

Last week, NBC finally got around to premiering The Paul Reiser Show, a new sitcom starring Paul Reiser. As you may recall, he was the male lead in NBC’s very successful Mad About You sitcom that ran for seven seasons, from 1992 until 1999. Will Reiser’s new show stick around as long or be quickly cancelled instead?

The Paul Reiser Show follows the life of a fictional version of Reiser, a former television star. While he enjoys spending time with his family, Reiser finds himself wanting more and he enlists his friends to help him find what that might be. In addition to Reiser, the series features Ben Shenkman, Omid Djalili, Duane Martin, Andrew Daly, Amy Landecker, Brock Waidmann, Koby Rouviere, and Larry Dorf.

Taking the place of low-rated Perfect Couples, the Reiser Show debuted to a disastrous 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just 3.37 million viewers. Those numbers aren’t just bad but they very likely represent the lowest Thursday night debut in the history of the network.

Typically, a show’s premiere episode attracts the best ratings of the season. People are drawn in by network advertising and 10-20% typically decide that the show’s not for them and don’t return to watch week two. With that in mind, the Reiser Show will very likely drop even lower tonight. If that happens, NBC will probably pull the sitcom from the schedule before next Thursday.

Unless the ratings miraculously turn around — and there hasn’t been any indication that that they will — The Paul Reiser Show is dead in the water and is sure to be cancelled very soon.

But what do you think? Is The Paul Reiser Show worth watching? Do you like it? Would you renew it for season two or just cancel it already?