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CANCELLATION ALERT: The Crazy Ones, Friends with Better Lives, Bad Teacher, Hostages, Intelligence

CBS handed down cancellations to five freshman shows today as they join We Are Men. All of the CBS cancellations this year were to new shows, a rarity as they usually cancel at least one veteran show (not counting the ending (by choice) How I Met Your Mother).

Probably the most painful cancellation was The Crazy Ones. This was a big attempt by CBS to get in the single camera game and boasted the return of Robin Williams to TV for the first time in decades. Premiering after the season premiere of The Big Bang Theory in the tentpole 9pm Thursday slot, it debuted to huge numbers and did well for a little while. But things started to fall apart in late fall as the show was losing a ton of its lead-in and contributing to a consistent slide as Thursday night went on. It eventually lost its tentpole slot and swapped with Two and a Half Men before ending its season early so the writing was on the wall.

Two of the most recent entries were also cancelled: Friends with Better Lives and Bad Teacher. Friends premiered after the series finale of How I Met Your Mother and had disappointing numbers but it held up OK once it started following 2 Broke Girls in the new CBS Monday lineup. This was one that truly could have gone either way but it seems like CBS is leaning heavily on dramas for next season. Bad Teacher premiered to decent numbers after The Crazy Ones ended, but it all fell apart in the second week with a huge drop so this was not surprising. Its cancellation means that CBS so far does not have any single camera sitcoms planned for next season.

Least surprising was the cancellations of Hostages and Intelligence. The two shared the Monday 10pm timeslot. Hostages was annihilated by The Blacklist from week one while Intelligence had a huge debut in a preview after NCIS but then crashed and burned the very next Monday.

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