As each new week and month passes by, more entries are being added to the list of TV shows ending in 2025, and it'll only get more hectic in May once finales start rolling through in full. It may not be quite such a newsworthy period for CBS, however, which has already made big calls by cancelling FBI's International and Most Wanted spinoffs while also announcing S.W.A.T.'s third official cancellation. Now, in a rare move for the network, two first-season shows have been axed.
In recent years, Netflix became something akin to the unofficial king of single-season shows given all of its originals that were canceled way too soon. (The past year's examples: Dead Boy Detectives, Territory, The Brothers Sun, Kaos, Good Times, and Girls5Eva, to name a few, and that's only the U.S. scripted content.) But it's CBS who's worthy of temporarily donning that crown after this week's news.
Poppa's House Canceled After One Season
Both Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. are known TV veterans in their own right, boasting shows like In Living Color, My Wife and Kids, and New Girl among others. So when the former co-created a new sitcom that he eventually signed on to co-star with opposite the latter, it seemed like no-brainer sitcom math.
For the most part, that math checked out, with both critics and audiences sharing generally positive feelings about the sitcom, which starred the elder Wayans as a divorced radio host living with his high-aiming son and his family. Debuting in October 2024 after strike-related delays, Poppa's House arrived to solid enough numbers for any broadcast sitcom, with 4.2 million viewers, and that number rose to higher than 5 million after a few days of delayed viewing.
Though the numbers dipped and didn't ever rise above 4 million again, CBS was pleased enough early on to order additional episodes, and none of the 17 that have aired so far have dipped below 3.1 million viewers. Which is about as consistent as TV ratings data gets these days.
Unfortunately, the network apparently wasn't too enamored by those numbers, and Variety reported that it canceled the comedy just days ahead of its actual Season 1 finale, which has been described as such:
Poppa prepares to reveal a big secret to Ivy. Meanwhile, Nina takes over Junior's short film project, on the first season finale of the CBS Original series Poppa's House.
Fans can catch the show's swan song airing on CBS on Monday, April 28, at 8:30 p.m. ET.
The Summit Canceled After One Season
Outside of scripted shows, CBS boasts several hallmarks of the reality TV genre, such as Big Brother, Survivor and The Amazing Race, and it doubled-down in "outlasting others through harsh conditions" sub-genre with the 2024 entry The Summit. Hosted by Arrowverse vet Manu Bennett, the competition series featured the easy to say, hard to accomplish goal of climbing a mountain in just two weeks.
The split financial prize for winners, combined with an array of obstacles and mystery duffel bags along the climb, turned what seemed like only a physical challenge took on mental and social struggles as well. It was an interesting way to handle the format, which originated as an Australian series, with several winners crowned and rewarded in the end.
But despite any and all on-air drama as the contestants fought to reach the top of the mountain, viewers were not so enthused about turning in nightly. The 3.03 million-strong audience that tuned in for the premiere dwindled down to a series-low of 1.82 million viewers just two episodes later, and despite some ebbs and flows over the next seven episodes, none of the eps celebrated any massive spikes in viewership.
Season 1 of The Summit wrapped in early December 2024, so at least viewers don't have to worry about the series ending on a cliffhanger, literally or metaphorically.
Both Poppa's House and The Summit can currently be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription.
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