Kevin Can Wait Canceled at CBS After Two Seasons
Carissa Pavlica
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Kevin James will be waiting once again.
Kevin Can Wait, the biggest ratings success at the beginning of the 2016-17 television season has become a casualty at the end of the 2017-18 season.
How did it happen?
Kevin Can Wait Season 1 started out as a family sitcom with Kevin married and recently retired from the police force.
Co-Starring Erinn Hayes as Kevin's wife, the show focuses on Kevin's shenanigans as a husband trying to get away with doing as little as possible in the wake of his retirement and his wife giving him the leeway to do it.
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Sometimes.
The kids weren't the best in the biz, but the lead couple had an easy banter that led to some great moments throughout the season.
Still, the ratings declined and in an effort to grasp the brass ring, Leah Remini was brought on for a guest spot and ratings spiked.
In a further effort to attain the magic Kevin James had with his previous hit, The King of Queens, a decision was made at the end of the first season to fire Hayes and make Remini a permanent fixture on the show.
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Gone was the married couple and family focus and instead, Kevin came out of retirement and joined Remini's character, his former partner, in a private security business, making the show more of a workplace comedy instead of family focused.
It didn't work as well as hoped.
The ratings were well off from the first season and never recovered.
It didn't help that fans had fallen for Hayes as his wife and were angry to learn she had been let go and even angrier to learn her character would be killed off.
Things took an even darker turn when Kevin Can Wait Season 2 premiered and the only mention of her Hayes' character was in reference to the family still receiving mail after she had been dead so long.
Related: Scorpion Canceled at CBS!
Fans never got to say goodbye to a character they'd grown to love and never even discovered how she'd died. A great big yikes on that bad decision.
Kevin Can Wait joins Superior Donuts and Scorpion on the chopping block today.
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.
