And another one bites the dust. There’s been plenty of news about cancellations and renewals of TV series over the last few days, with shows like Agent Carter, Castle, Minority Report, The Grinder, and Nashville all getting the boot from their networks. Now, NBC has announced that it will be cancelling Undateable, a Friday night comedy that was filmed live this season.
This news comes from TV Line, who reports that Undateable will not be returning for a fourth season. Created by Adam Sztykiel, the show was based on Ellen Rakieten and Anne Coyle’s book, Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating or Having Sex. The TV series starred Chris D’Elia (Whitney) as eternal single guy Danny Burton, and his circle of dating challenged friends, as they tried to figure out why they were all so undateable. The show also starred Brent Morin, David Fynn, Rick Glassman, Ron Funches, Bianca Kajlich, and Bridgit Mendler.
Undateable is notable for using a live show format for nearly all of its Season 3 run. Originally just a standard multi-camera sitcom, the series did a one-hour live show for its Season 2 finale. Due to an increase in ratings, the show opted to air live for Season 3, and made a switch from Tuesday to Friday nights. The actors performed for a live studio audience for both the east and west coast. They also had musical guests such as Meghan Trainor, The Backstreet Boys, and Weezer. However, despite its massive shift in format, it was never able to climb high in the ratings.
Undateable sounds like an exhausting show for both the actors and the crew. Doing a live show isn’t easy, and the fact that it was a standard 30-minute comedy means it didn’t have the benefit of variety like a sketch show, such as Saturday Night Live, would have. It had a high potential to become stale, and if ratings are anything to go by, that’s exactly what happened.
Undateable joins the ranks of shows NBC has cancelled over the last few days. The Peacock has also cancelled freshmen series Heartbeat, Telenovela, Crowded, and Game of Silence. It’s not all cancellations over at NBC though. The network has already picked up Chicago Justice, another spinoff of the Chicago franchise that began with Chicago Fire. There are still quite a few shows left on the bubble, so keep checking Cinema Blend for all of your TV updates.
