The demise of NBC’s romantic comedy A To Z might have been over exaggerated. Although the show appeared to meet its doom last week, the show’s latest episode suddenly earned better ratings than the previous one.
Last Friday, NBC announced that both Bad Judge and A To Z would continue filming their 13 episodes, but weren’t getting a “back nine” order. In fact, the shows will both remain on the air, even though some outlets reported that they are “cancelled.”
But the truth is that neither really is, it just means that both didn’t get a full freshman season. As Entertainment Weekly pointed out last night, a show is only officially cancelled when it stops airing all together. (By that logic, both ABC’s Manhattan Love Story and Fox’s Utopia really are cancelled, since both networks pulled them from their schedules immediately.)
Last week’s decision came after both shows dropped to new lows. A To Z, which stars Cristin Milioti and Ben Feldman, fell to a 0.7 18-49 rating, while Bad Judge preceded it with a 0.9. And that was without CBS’ Thursday Night Football.
Strangely, after a week of the shows considered cancelled, audiences finally decided to tune in. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bad Judge climbed to a 1.1 and A To Z reached a 1.0. However, THR does note that NBC aired the TNF game in Cincinnati, so these numbers might be slightly overinflated.
The numbers still aren’t very good, so producer Rashida Jones will have to keep the #SaveAToZ campaign going, but it is reason enough for A To Z fans to have some hope. Perhaps the love story of Zelda and Andrew will be a little longer than previously thought.
image of Cristin Milioti courtesy of Kristin Callahan/ACE/INFphoto.com