Fans of Craig Robinson are not going to be pleased by the news we are about to drop in their laps. That’s because NBC just made the decision to cancel Mr. Robinson, the freshman comedy series led by The Office’s Craig Robinson. The comedy only earned a six-episode Season 1 order and it turns out that will be the end of the line for the series.
Honestly, if you’ve been keeping tabs on Mr. Robinson, the cancellation news should not be unexpected, although it’s a little tragic for Craig Robinson, who does have enough personality to lead his own series. Although the ratings were middling during the freshman comedy’s short run and could potentially have led to a Season 2 pickup,Deadline notes reviews were not kind to the new comedy, and may have sealed its fate. Indeed, reviewers did note that stale jokes and a dull premise were problems for the freshman comedy. In addition, Mr. Robinson took more than a year to make it to the air—it was originally picked up to pilot way back in 2013--and now that its first season run is ended, it’s a whole easier to see why it may have taken so much time in development to move forward.
NBC has had a really rough run with comedies lately. The network said goodbye to a slew of freshman comedies over the last couple of years, including the likes of A to Z and The Michael J. Fox Show. For a brief moment after Parks and Recreation ended, About a Boy, with only a season and a half under its belt, was the network’s longest running comedy. Unfortunately, even that show found itself cancelled at the end of the 2014-2015 TV season. Just a couple of months ago, NBC also axed Welcome To Sweden; the Amy Poehler-executive produced comedy was cancelled just a few days into its Season 2 run. While a few shows have survived the cancellation axe, including Undateable and The Carmichael Show, NBC is in desperate need of some comedies that will stick. (Tina Fey has one in the works so maybe that’ll be it? I'm not optimistic, considering how the network treated Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.)
It’s not all bad news, however. The network has a few interesting new dramas that are going to premiere this fall, including Blindspot with Jaimie Alexander and The Player starring Wesley Snipes and Strike Back’s Philip Winchester. Plus winners like The Voice and The Blacklist aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Still, the network really needs to revamp its lineup and try to find a way to make comedies work—even if they aren’t able to get major traffic from comedies on Thursday nights anymore.
To see what NBC has coming up this fall, head here.
