With its popularity soaring to new heights, ABC’s comedy, Not Dead Yet, comes to life as the network’s most-watched comedy debut in over four years. According to Deadline, the show has reached an overall count of 7.6 million viewers in the span of seven days since February 8th, the largest viewership for a comedy debut since Bless This Mess in April 2019. Along with that, the increase of viewers increased by 4 million from its live and same-day audience of 3.6 million on its premiere. It is noted as the largest delayed-viewing increase for an ABC comedy since The Conners in October 2018.
The show is about a woman named Nell Serrano played by Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin, I Want You Back) who is trying to get back on her feet to revive her career she left behind five years prior. She finds the only available job which involves writing obituaries, and with the help from unlikely sources, she navigates through life and witnesses the supernatural. Along with Rodriguez, the main cast includes Hannah Simone (New Girl, Oldboy) as Sam, Lauren Ash (Superstore, Lars and the Real Girl) as Lexi, Rick Glassman (As We See It, The Sixth Lead) as Edward, Josh Banday (Upload, Mom) as Dennis, and Angela Elayne Gibbs (Hacks, This Is Us) as Cricket.
The series is a loose adaptation of the 2020 novel Confessions of a 40-something F**k Up written by Alexandra Potter (The Love Detective, Be Careful What You Wish For). The creators of the show are David Windsor (Galavant, This is Us) and Casey Johnson (This is Us, The Real O’Neals). Windsor, Johnson, and Rodriguez will be joined byMary Viola (Brooklyn’s Finest, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and Corey L. Marsh (Holidate, The Babysitter: Killer Queen) as executive producers along with Wonderland Sound and Vision’s McG.
Not Dead Yet was expected to be a hit, and critics who got early access had mixed reviews in terms of the show’s themes and how it attempts to implement them in this comedic style. Nevertheless, the show has an 83% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.5/10 on IMDb, with its most recent episode, “Not Out of High School Yet” being rated at 7.5/10. The show overall is a massive hit with audiences of many demographics, but especially those between the ages of 18-49 as that rating soared since the show’s premiere.
Not Dead Yet is being shown on ABC on Wednesday nights at 9:30pm EST and is available to stream on Hulu. If you want to catch a glimpse of what the show is like, you can also watch clips on sites such as YouTube, and here is one clip down below to get you hooked.