The Millers Arnett Bridges Martindale - H 2013
CBSIn a somewhat surprising development, CBS is canning a comedy — and it’s not the one many might expect. The network pulled the plug on sophomore sitcom The Millers late Friday afternoon.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that production has shut down immediately, and at the moment, only the coming Nov. 17 episode is expected to air.
It was a rough couple of weeks leading up to the demise of the Greg Garcia series. It lost its prime post-Big Bang Theory Thursday time slot to Mom in an eleventh hour scheduling move. Its move to Mondays, airing after 2 Broke Girls, has brought series low ratings. It’s not clear what will air in the 8:30 p.m. time slot in its place — though seat-filler Mike & Molly has several episodes of its fifth season in the can.
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The Millers — produced by studio counterpart CBS Television Studios where showrunner Garcia is under an overall deal — was one of the network’s bubble comedies last season. The network ultimately renewed it over 20th Century Fox Television’s The Crazy Ones. For his part, Garcia and his studio-based Amigos de Garcia banner has had a busy development season, setting up seven projects across multiple broadcast networks. The My Name Is Earl alum has focused on developing other writers and is not writing any of the projects himself.
CBS made a play to creatively invigorate the series by adding sitcom vet Sean Hayes to the cast that already included Will Arnett, Margo Martindale and Beau Bridges. But The Millers languished in its new time slot, bringing down lead-out Scorpion with it. The most recent episode pulled just a middling 1.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 6.5 million viewers. Those are basically the same numbers as the network’s only new comedy this fall, The McCarthys.
Meanwhile, CBS’ midseason bench includes Matthew Perry‘s The Odd Couple — which was retooled after being picked up to series in May — as well as dramas Battle Creek and CSI: Cyber.
