After months of speculation, we have confirmation that ABC has canceled coming of age comedy drama The Wonder Years.
The news comes one month following the show’s season 2 finale, pushed from mid-season to summer — a move which so often signals a network is burning off remaining episodes before a cancelation announcement.
The series was a reboot of the beloved original which ran on ABC from 1988 to 1993. The show was set in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and focused on a middle-class suburban white family, dealing with social, political, and personal events of the day, all parsed through the lens of its main character, teenager Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage).
In ABC’s 2021 reboot, the show shifted focus to the Williams family, black middle-class residents of Montgomery, Alabama, and was narrated from the point of view of the imaginative 12-year-old Dean (Elisha “EJ” Williams). The series also starred Don Cheadle, Dulé Hill, Saycon Sengbloh, Laura Kariuki, Julian Lerner, Amari O’Neil, and Milan Ray.
However, The Wonder Years reboot preformed poorly, ranking as the lowest-rated and least watched ABC series this summer. To boot, original star Fred Savage, who served as an executive producer and director over the course of the show’s first season was fired following an investigation into misconduct allegations.
“Recently, we were made aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct by Fred Savage, and as is policy, an investigation was launched. Upon its completion, the decision was made to terminate his employment as an executive producer and director of The Wonder Years,” a spokesman for 20th Television said in a statement at the time.
The Wonder Years is the latest ABC “Bubble Show” whose fate has been definitively decided upon. The Rookie: Feds and Home Economics, (along with an announcement on the passing or pick up of The Good Lawyer pilot) are still in renewal/cancelation limbo as WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to dominate the TV news front.
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