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‘Good riddance’! Politically charged ‘Murphy Brown’ won’t be returning after dismal ratings

November 29, 2018 | | Print Article

A reboot of the 80s and 90s sitcom “Murphy Brown” will not be returning to TV next year.

“[T]he network is firming up its comedy slate for 2019, with its Murphy Brown reboot and Damon Wayans Jr. vehicle Happy Together both ending their respective runs after their initial 13-episode orders,” The Hollywood Reporter revealed Wednesday.

This suggests that the show has been ostensibly killed, since there’s no mention of an extension of the show, which would make sense given its ratings. The Hollywood Reporter notes that it has consistently “unperformed,” attracting only an average of 6.2 viewers in its prime time Thursday spot at 9:30 pm.

Some suspect the ratings stem from the show’s endless attacks on the Trump administration.

A recent episode of the show demonized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as racists and showed lead character Murphy Brown, a journalist, threatening several agents for trying to apprehend two illegal immigrants and perform the duties of their job.

Watch:

In another episode, the show portrayed President Donald Trump’s supporters as violent thugs. According to the New York Post, when one of Brown’s colleagues attended a Trump rally, he wound up being attacked and suffering “three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and one eye that’s swollen shut.”

…

Watch a scene from the episode below:

These sorts of false narratives — the evidence suggests that political violence in the age of Trump has been carried out mostly by left-wing extremists, not Trump supporters — have not sat well with the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016.

This may explain why the reaction to “Murphy Brown” seemingly being cancelled has been gleeful.

Look:

Yet CBS refuses to confirm that the show has been cancelled, saying only that it remains in consideration for possible renewal. The series’ creator, Diane English, has echoed this sentiment.

Look what she wrote on Twitter:

But these claims don’t fit the evidence. The Hollywood Reporter notes that CBS plans to place the comedy sitcom “Fam” in the 9:30 pm spot previously held by “Murphy Brown” starting Jan. 10. If “Murphy Brown” is slated for renewal, why would CBS fill its spot with another show?

It’s for this reason that few believe CBS’s claim, including conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

“CBS has canceled Murphy Brown. Historic low ratings. CBS is saying (paraphrasing), ‘Hey, there’s no news here. We’re canceling it after 13 weeks. It was only a 13-week order. So we’re just not renewing it. We’re not canceling anything,'” he said on the radio Wednesday.

“That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. You know as well as I do that if Murphy Brown had been a hit, that they’d be trying to do another Roseanne version of it except not get rid of Candace Bergen.”

“The Connors” is an ABC reboot of the popular sitcom “Roseanne,” which was cancelled earlier this year after lead actress Roseanne Barr mocked former Obama administration aide Valerie Jarrett with a joke that some deemed to be racist.

The fact that CBS isn’t actively trying to keep “Murphy Brown” alive the way ABC tried to keep “Roseanne” alive suggests it has very little — if any at all — interest in maintaining the show.

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Vivek Saxena
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