NBC’s comedy series, A.P. Bio, has officially been given the axe along with other prime time shows — Abby’s and The Passage being among the long list of cancellations this mid-season. The series was executive produced by Saturday Night Live alumni Seth Meyers along with writer Mike O’Brien, who also created the series.
Patton Oswalt, who plays the show’s Principal Durbin, also launched a Twitter campaign in light of the series’ cancellation, along with his fellow co-stars Glenn Howerton and Mary Sohn. Their goal, to encourage audiences to binge watch the series though streaming services in hopes of gaining more momentum; a sentiment further backed by O’Brien’s comments that the show is performing better on Hulu than live TV.
The announcement was revealed via Twitter:
I'm intensely sad to announce that AP Bio will be ending after this season. This has been my favorite project of my life and that's because of the amazing writers, cast and crew. As most canceled shows probably feel, I think we were just hitting our stride and everyone was still
— Mike O'Brien (@MikeOBrienXOXO) May 25, 2019
According to critical outlets, A.P. Bio holds a current 65% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been described as having “some genuine laughs” despite “audiences seeing plenty of authority figures behaving badly” on television. Viewership ratings were also reported to be low, at an average of 0.7 rating with 884K viewers in the 18-49 demographic, totaling at 2.4 million total viewers.
The high school comedy starred Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) as a disgraced Harvard philosophy scholar, down on his luck, who is forced to return to Toledo, Ohio, and work as a AP biology teacher at Whitlock High School. After “bonding” with his students, Howerton’s Jack begins to use his students for his own benefit and schemes.
Patton Oswalt, Lyric Lewis, Mary Sohn, Jean Villepique, Tom Bennett, Paula Pell, Charlie McCrackin, Jacob McCarthy, Aparna Brielle, Nick Peine, Allisyn Ashley Arm, Eddie Leavy, Jacob Houston, Sari Arambulo, Tucker Albrizzi and Spence Moore II, make up the rest if the series’ cast list.