One of the great mysteries of this TV season is the fact that I Hate My Teenage Daughter has NOT been canceled yet. However, the show has been far from a success, and today FOX announced that it is officially pulling the low-rated sitcom off its schedule immediately.
The show aired Tuesdays at 8:30pm as part of FOX’s two-hour comedy block, but the latest episode was the show’s lowest rated ever, with less than 3 million viewers. To be fair, all of FOX’s Tuesday comedies (Raising Hope, New Girl and Breaking In) were down on March 20, but I Hate My Teenage Daughter seems to be the scapegoat. In its place, FOX will air repeats of Raising Hope for the next two weeks before Glee returns on April 10.
The disdain FOX has for I Hate My Teenage Daughter has been obvious since the start. Here’s a look at five moments in the show’s programming history that point to just how much FOX hates this show.
FOX Sets Series Premiere for Day Before Thanksgiving
When FOX first announced its fall schedule, I Hate My Teenage Daughter was the last new show to premiere, scheduled for Wednesday, November 23 at 9:30pm following The X Factor. First, launching the day before Thanksgiving, when everyone is traveling, is an awful time slot. Second, it was being paired with an untested new reality series. Third, FOX tried the whole “90-minute singing competition followed by a sitcom” structure last season with American Idol and Breaking In, and it failed so badly that FOX canceled the comedy (only to bring it back from the dead later).
FOX Pushes the Premiere
In a smart move, but still one that isn’t particularly respectful, FOX later delayed the series premiere to November 30.
FOX Takes the Show Off Until Spring
After just four episodes in November and December, I Hate My Teenage Daughter was pulled off the schedule and FOX planned on keeping it off the air until the spring when it would be paired with 90-minute performance episodes of American Idol. Taking a new show off the air for four months is clearly not a good sign.
FOX Creates Two-Hour Comedy Block
The entire concept of a two-hour comedy block on Tuesday nights was foolish because FOX didn’t have an established hit to help launch it. New Girl was successful, but not nearly enough to hold up an entire evening of programming. So instead, I Hate My Teenage Daughter was thrown in at 8:30pm following Raising Hope, which is hardly a strong lead-in. And now the show has already been pulled from this block.
FOX Pushes the Show Until Summer
Remember how I said FOX planned on airing I Hate My Teenage Daughter after American Idol this spring? Well, FOX later remembered how poorly that idea worked last year, so they scrapped it before it even started, instead saying that the show will air sometime in the summer.
All of this adds up to the fact that I Hate My Teenage Daughter is the red-headed stepchild of FOX. I’m genuinely not sure why the network doesn’t just cancel it and be done, but I guess since they already filmed a bunch of episodes, they feel obligated to air them at some point.
Not that it matters, because the constantly declining ratings prove that the executives at FOX aren’t the only ones who hate I Hate My Teenage Daughter.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
