Home Economics receives a disappointing update from ABC
Home Economics, an ABC comedy series which has run since 2021, finally has a renewal/cancellation update.
We’ve been sitting in limbo over the show’s fate since the typical window for networks deciding which shows they’re going to keep for the next television year and which they’re going to axe came and went. This was largely due to ABC working to determine a suitable line-up that fits their programming needs whilst also ensuring the network’s viewers are receiving content that they’re going to tune into from week-to-week in large enough numbers.
Throughout the WGA strike and then the SAG-AFTRA strike, the updates we kept getting about the show’s fate revolved around ABC waiting until the end of the work stoppage to make a decision. In August 2023, Deadline reported that the cast options for Home Economics would hold until after the actors strike resolved. In fact, they’d have a month and a half before needing to decide the show’s fate.
But now waiting until the end of both strikes is no longer on the table. The writers strike is essentially over as the WGA and the AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement which will be voted on by the union’s members. Writers have been given the greenlight to go back to work and networks are now in the process of deciding what the remaining landscape of the 2023-2024 television year will look like and whether they’ll be holding some shows until the fall for the 2024-2025 season.
While there is a meeting scheduled between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA for Monday, Oct. 2, ABC has already begun making decisions about the programs on their roster including Home Economics which won’t be returning for a season 4.
Home Economics has been canceled
TVLine reports ABC comedy series will end its run with its completed third season. Home Economic‘s cancellation is not going to sit well with fans who were holding on to hope that the network’s choice to consider keeping the series while in the midst of a work stoppage was a positive sign. Unfortunately, that didn’t end up being the case.
As for why the show was canceled, this could boil down to viewership. The series, which was one of five comedies that aired on ABC in the 2022-2023 season, was the least watched show of its genre on the network. The Goldbergs and The Wonder Years have been canceled, too, leaving only two comedies left on the roster: Abbott Elementary and Not Dead Yet. With most of its comedy block wiped out, ABC will have to rebuild in this area.
The one silver lining is that Home Economics didn’t end on a cliffhanger. When speaking to TVLine after season 3 wrapped in January, showrunners Michael Colton and John Aboud shared that the finale, “Emergency Preparedness Kit, $129.99,” had been designed to be whatever the creative team needed it to be whether that was a midseason finale, season finale, or series finale.
With the episode being a series finale this does, however, mean that fans won’t get to see what would become of Connor’s decision to run for mayor or Denise and Sarah’s pregnancy journey after they’d done their IVF storyline. But Colton and Aboud may share what they had planned for season 4 sometime in the near future. If they do, it’ll at least provide some insight into how the series would have progressed.
Stay tuned to Hidden Remote for more ABC news and coverage. Home Economics seasons 1-3 are available to stream on Hulu.
