Welcome to the Family
Buried in the middle of a disastrous set of sitcoms, Welcome to the Family didn’t have the pedigree to survive any longer.
The handwriting has been on the ratings wall almost since the beginning, but it still came sooner than expected: Welcome to the Family, one of a handful of new TV series with Latino themes and stars, has been cancelled after only three episodes. Ricardo Chavira, Justina Machado, Joseph Haro and Fabrizio Guido are out of a job effective immediately. (NBC also cancelled Ironside at the same time; it will be allowed one more showing before it disappears).
Jon Seda Chicago P.D.
In fact, NBC’s entire Thursday night line-up of sitcoms has been under-performing at an almost awesome level, and Welcome, as the newest kid on the programming block, is the first to suffer. Its lead-in, Parks and Recreation, is doing only slightly better, but there is good reason for NBC to give the cult favorite a few more episodes for its inevitable syndication–as well as keep hot-as-a-pistol stars Amy Poehler and Aubrey Plaza in the fold. Meanwhile the show that followed Welcome, Sean Saves the World, may have been spared only because Sean Hayes, the co-star of one of NBC’s biggest hits ever and a producer in his own right, built ever-so-slightly out of Welcome’s lead. Meanwhile The Michael J. Fox show, a major ratings disappointment for the net, has a locked-in 22-episode order. Which left Welcome as the odd man (and woman and child) out.
Diane Kruger and Demián Bichir
The Bridge
Beginning October 30, the venerable magazine-format show Dateline will fill Ironside’s spot until January 3, when the Chicago Fire spinoff Chicago P.D., starring Latinos Jon Seda and Tony Castillo, will take its place. NBC will fill the void left by Welcome with a mix of back-to-back episodes of Parks and Recreation and specials for the next two months, until Community finally returns for its fifth season on January 2.
All in all, four new scripted shows featuring Latino actors and themes have appeared in the last few months, and so far Welcome is the only one to fall. Devious Maids and The Fosters, on Lifetime and ABC Family respectively, both opened modestly and showed tremendous growth throughout the season; both have been renewed for 2014. The Bridge, with Demián Bichir, impressed FX enough that they have green-lighted a second season as well. Meanwhile, Gang-Related, the Fox cop-and-gang drama, won’t appear until mid-year.
It’s not clear if there are any completed episodes of Welcome that didn’t make it to air, and if so where and how (or if) they will be released.
