Fox has canceled its drama Almost Family after one season on the network.
The series, which wrapped its 13-episode run on Feb. 22 — the final two episodes were shunted off to a Saturday night well after the bulk of episodes had aired — was among the lowest-rated shows on the Big Four networks this season.
Star Timothy Hutton also was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in the early 1980s in a Buzzfeed News report published Monday. The actor “completely and unequivocally denies” the allegations, per a statement from his representatives. Fox declined comment on Hutton.
Almost Family, based on the Australian show Sisters, centered on Julia Bechley (Brittany Snow), who discovers that her father (Hutton), a renowned fertility doctor, used his own genetic material to conceive dozens of other children without the mothers’ knowledge. Megalyn Echikunwoke and Emily Osment also starred as two of Julia’s newly discovered half-sisters.
The Universal Television/Fox Entertainment series was created by Annie Weisman (About a Boy), who executive produced with Jason Katims, Jeni Mulein, Imogen Banks, Sharon Levy and Randy Zisk.
The show premiered to modest numbers and never really caught on with viewers; critics also derided it, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Daniel Fienberg writing, “If Almost Family is anything, it’s a series in conflict with itself.”
Excluding the two final episodes on Feb. 22, Almost Family averaged a meager 2.5 million viewers and a 0.7 rating in the key ad demographic of adults 18-49 with a week of delayed viewing. Both figures rank in the bottom five of shows on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC this season.
