Mom, recently recognized as the longest-running scripted half-hour series currently on CBS, will make its eighth season its final season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The February 17 announcement of the show’s conclusion comes nearly half year after star performer Anna Faris (Scary Movie, The House Bunny) announced her departure from the family sitcom after seven seasons, via The Hollywood Reporter. Rather than recast Faris’s role, the show shifted its overall focus in season eight from the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship between Bonnie (Allison Janney, The West Wing) and Christy (Faris) to the former’s love life and the everyday problems of her circle of friends, which includes Jill (Jaime Pressley, My Name is Earl), Wendy (Beth Hall, Marvelous and the Black Hole) and Tammy (Kristen Johnson, 3rd Rock from the Sun), as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
Johnson, who joined the multi-camera comedy in its fifth season, revealed on her Twitter that the cast and crew only learned the news about Mom‘s conclusion the day before it was made public knowledge.
Even though Mom is on its way out on CBS, series co-creator and nine-time Emmy nominee Chuck Lorre (Young Sheldon) will maintain his prominent presence on the network. His latest multi-cam offering United States of Al is slated to premiere on Thursday, April 1, via CBS press release. Additionally, Lorre’s Monday night romantic comedy series Bob Hearts Abishola was given an early renewal order mere hours before the Mom cancellation announcement, Deadline reports. Lorre’s fellow executive producers Gemma Baker (Two and Half Men) and Nick Bakay (Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2) have yet to unveil new projects. Bakay has notably worked in the writer’s rooms for Bob Hearts Abishola and Lorre’s single-camera Netflix offering The Kominsky Method, the latter of which is also gearing up for its final season.
CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl (Sister Cities) looked back on the legacy of Mom as comedy series that rarely shied away from challenging, true-to-life subject matter: “Since its premiere, Mom has touched peoples’ lives by sensitively tackling weighty yet relatable topics, with a perfect, deft touch… [It] redefined what a comedy can be, and we are proud to have been the network home to this wonderful series,” via The Hollywood Reporter. A significant exception to this has been season eight’s deliberate refusal to address the COVD-19 pandemic, Entertainment Weekly reports.
The series finale of Mom is set to air on CBS on May 6 at 9 P.M. EST, according to Deadline. Later that month, CBS will broadcast the season seven finale of NCIS: New Orleans, which doubles as the procedural’s overall series finale.