Tiffany Haddish, David Alan Grier, Lil Rel Howery, Loretta Devine, Jerrod Carmichael, Amber Stevens West — Matthias Clamer / NBC
After 3 seasons, NBC has pulled the plug on Jerrod Carmichael’s critically acclaimed multi-cam family sitcom. (I’m making the same face as everyone in the picture above!)
Carmichael’s show was a network television rarity, it was unapologetically about Black people, but it didn’t focus only on their blackness. They got to be multi-facetted characters, with different likes and dislikes and strong opinions that varied within the family. Something white people get to be all the time, while people of colour are relegated to background or stereotypical best-friend-with-no-personality roles.
On June 30th, Carmichael made headlines by announcing, via his representatives, that he would not be returning to the show and on July 2nd, NBC made the official cancellation announcement.
“For three seasons (okay 2.5), I got to make a show that I love with my friends,” he said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was 13. Now, I’m excited to go make other things that I love. Thank you to every person who worked on or watched The Carmichael Show.“ – Jerrod Carmichael via his publicist to Deadline
It’s unclear why Jerrod’s statement came days before official network news, perhaps he knew the news was coming and wanted to control the narrative. Overall, the network hasn’t been that fair to the show, burning the first season off in a few weeks, airing the second season quickly and out of order, holding the 3rd season until the summer season, airing it out of order again and coupling it with first season reruns.
To his credit, Jerrod has been very vocal about his disagreements with the network, especially a few weeks ago, when they pulled an episode about Jerrod surviving a mass shooting after a mass shooting happened in the US that same day.
It’s rare that I get invested in TV shows anymore, I’ve been betrayed too many times, but Carmichael was one I impatiently waited for and watched LIVE! I livetweeted with the baes, and truly looked forward to the laughs, and the things I might learn about an experience different than my own.
I want to end this post by sincerely thanking everyone involved with the show, David, Loretta, Lil Rel, Tiffany, Amber, Nicholas Stoller, Danielle, the writers, and of course Jerrod himself.
A world in which Kevin Can Wait (or any CBS sitcom except Life In Pieces) gets a renewal but The Carmichael Show gets cancelled is not a world I want to live in.
Season 3 of The Carmichael Show will continue to air Wednesday nights on NBC – please watch!
