From New Girl to Single Parents, Elizabeth Meriwether and J.J. Philbin bring us this family sitcom of a band of single parents who help each other through the struggles of parenting. Although this concept has been tried over and over again, Single Parents is looking to shake things up with a flair of a little drama and comedy.
Will Cooper (Taran Killam) is a single father to his daughter. While devoting his whole life to raising her, he has forgotten about his own ambitions and getting back into the dating world. With some help from the other single parents, Will is thrown into a life he is looking to get back.
Killam recently posted a snippet on his Instagram.
Meriwether and Philbin decided to take this show to a hangout-comedy route. Although this isn’t ABC’s strongest point, they decided to take a chance on the idea. Meriwether said, “they were so open to it. I’ve only worked at Fox since when I started this whole thing, so I’ve never even pitched anywhere else. I think Fox is a little bit more edgy than the other networks—I was just terrified that they weren’t going to do something a little bit edgier. They really seem like they wanted a show that pushed the boundaries comedically. [ABC was] really open to “the good thing about the show is that it’s in our comfort zone because it is a family show, but it’s taking one little step out to talk about dating and talk about sex.” In the writer’s room, I’ll occasionally be like, “Can we do that on ABC?”
The series has set up the parents in a way where they already share a close bond in the pilot. For Meriwether, it was an easy write-in. She said, “We want them to be hanging out, we want them to be friends. That’s my favorite stuff: finding out weird backstory about friendship. I don’t need to tell you this.”
Single Parents will premiere on Wednesday, September 26 at 9:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. CT on ABC.