Despite rather charming plots and appealing performances, the real loser of the Fall 2014 television season has been romantic comedies. Now that ABC has cancelled Selfie, all the sitcoms that centered on a romance are either dead or about to be.

The first sign that this season’s revival of the genre wasn’t going to work came when ABC pulled Manhattan Love Story after just four episodes.

Starring Analeigh Tipton and Jake McDorman as the main couple, the show had a cute concept that let the audience hear their thoughts. However, the show’s writers appeared to be moving away from that and the show got bogged down in cliches. That fourth and final episode about the two trying to have sex for the first time was the last straw.

The show also had an issue with far too many characters. Tipton had two roommates - her best friend from college and her friend's husband, while McDorman had this large family of trophy makers at work to deal with. It also looked like the writers wanted another group of characters at Tipton's place of work, a publishing company.

Next, it was NBC's turn to pull the cord on A To Z, which promised to trace the relationship of Andrew (Ben Feldman) and Zelda (Cristin Milioti). The show is still airing the rest of its 13-episode order.

While Manhattan and A To Z had their similarities (both second episodes centers on the same plot - are we OK with seeing other people?), A To Z has one big advantage - less characters. Andrew and Zelda each only have one best friend and there are only four characters to annoy Andrew at work. We never even see Zelda’s co-workers at her law firm beyond her friend, Stephie (Lenora Crichlow).

And then on Friday, ABC ended Selfie, which was Suburgatory creator Emily Kapnek’s new take on Pygmalion. The central couple here - played by John Cho and Karen Gillan - still hasn’t even gotten together, although we know it will happen (or would have happened). ABC will burn off the remaining 13 episodes of this show.

Sadly, what really did Selfie in was the stupid title. It really has started to pick up, but that title is a huge turn-off for audiences who already hate that overused word. Kapnek (who should actually be doing another season of Suburgatory, but that’s for another day...) should have been able to come up with something better.

So, stories about TV rom-coms coming back were a bit premature. The backlash following How I Met Your Mother’s finale had to be one reason why audiences didn’t want to get invested in another rom-com, especially if they weren’t going to like the ending.

The two new sitcoms that have done well so far are both family comedies. ABC’s Black-ish has already won a full season. Over at CBS, the Boston-set The McCarthys has also gotten off to a good start.

image courtesy of Famous/ACE/INFphoto.com