Cougar Town was unceremoniously missing from ABC’s spring 2012 schedule this afternoon without any explanation on when it would return. This is what is must have felt like for Community fans earlier in the week after that show was left off of the NBC spring 2012 schedule. I feel your pain now, and I’m sorry.
Good thing for Cougar Town fans though, ABC has announced that the wine drinking cul-de-sac crew will return to the schedule this March, taking over the Tuesday 830p.m. slot when new comedy Work It completes its run. The bad news, since the show will be airing so late in the season, the network has ordered only 15 episodes. 15 episodes airing in March is better than no episodes airing ever, in my opinion.
More bad news to go with this whole situation, if things go as planed now (which they rarely do in the TV world), Cougar Town won’t be a companion to the much-anticipated, but still-yet-to-be-scheduled new comedy Apartment 23 starring Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, and James Van Der Beek. The plan from the start, according to ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee, was that the female skewing Cougar Town would be scheduled Tuesday at 9p.m. with Apartment 23 following at 930p.m., because both shows skew toward the same audience. I can’t see Cougar Town being a good companion with male skewing Last Man Standing.
Hopefully things change at ABC before March and we can see the hilarious Cougar Town matched with a comedy with a similar tone so its chances of surviving to a fourth season can increase.