As the theme song proudly proclaimed, “This is it!” Four years after its abrupt cancellation due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, One Day at a Time is getting rescued again...sort of. Fans of the beloved reboot of Norman Leer's sitcom will recall that the fourth season was cut short despite the writers already having the entire season written. Now, after all this time, the Alvarez family is getting back together to do a table read of those episodes. It’s not exactly what fans like myself hoped for, but it’s better than nothing. And who knows, maybe more unjustly canceled shows will get the same treatment.
One Day At A Time Will Do A Table Read For Its Final Episodes
One Day at a Time’s situation is a slightly unique case compared to other canceled shows. The series originally aired on Netflix, but it was canceled after the third season. Pop TV, the cable channel known for airing Schitts Creek in the US, picked up the popular family sitcom for a fourth season. Unfortunately, that season began airing at the start of 2020, and since it was filmed in front of a live studio audience, it was cut short by three episodes, meaning the cast and crew never got the chance to end the series properly.
However, that is about to change. The official writers’ account for the sitcom announced that the original cast would reunite in early October to read the remaining three scripts, including the series finale -- which were written but never shot. Fans in Los Angeles can purchase tickets to the event, with all proceeds going to People For The American Way Foundation, founded by the show’s original creator, the late Norman Leer.
Unfortunately, this is an exclusively in-person event. According to the writers’ account, they are unable to livestream or make the table read available in its entirety online due to rights and union rules. However, they seem hopeful that they’ll be able to share some excerpts later. At the very least, I’m sure the lucky fans who attend the event will be sharing everything that happened in the hours after.
Table reads, where the entire cast gathers to read scripts before production begins, are hardly ever made public beyond behind-the-scenes videos and photos. So this is a big deal — especially for a show that was canceled. It might not be what everyone was hoping for. However, the fact that co-showrunner/executive producer Gloria Calderón Kellet and the rest of her talented cast and crew were granted permission to host such an event and release the scripts is a positive sign in a time where so many shows are being canceled without proper endings.
I Hope More Canceled Shows Get Events Like This
Though unique in its circumstances, One Day at a Time isn’t the only show to get canceled without giving fans a proper ending. In fact, it seems to be happening more, as so many projects have wound up on 2024's list of canceled or ending shows. And many of them, like Prime Video’s My Lady Jane, were axed after only one season, and in a lot of cases said season ended on a cliffhanger.
While producing more episodes to tie things up isn’t always feasible, getting the cast together to do a table read and answer fans dying questions does seem like a good compromise. After all, in a lot of cases, the creatives behind the series know where it's headed. Sometimes, the scripts are already written, as is the rumored case with Netflix’s recently canceled Dead Boy Detectives, according to an interview writer Ian Weinreich did with Kika Labs.
Fans of canceled shows have been popping off online and begging studios and streamers to find a way to bring them closure for years, and hosting table reads of final episodes might be the closest we’ve ever come to a solution. There’s no guarantee that what One Day at a Time is doing will become commonplace. However, I’m really hoping the event is a hit and leads to similar solutions for other canceled too-soon shows.
You can stream the first three seasons of the hilarious Cuban-American family sitcom with an active Netflix subscription. Unfortunately, the fourth season remains unavailable, but hopefully, it will find a home on one of the best streaming services soon.
