Well, it finally happened. One of my favorite television shows (and the subject of my current research) has officially been canceled. One Day at a Time is a multi-camera style sit-com that was filmed in front of a live studio audience. It is loosely based on the 1975 series by the same name. It centers around a Cuban American family comprised of a newly divorced mother Penelope, her Cuban mother Lydia, her two teenage children Elena and Alex, and her neighbor and landlord Schneider.
ODAAT debuted in 2017 on Netflix where it lived for the first three seasons. But not without struggle. After the second season, Netflix announced that they were planning on cancelling the show. However, due to a fan-led campaign on social media to save the show (#SaveODAAT), Netflix agreed to give it one more season. After the third season ended, Netflix decided they didn’t want to keep it. But unlike many “Netflix Originals,” ODAAT was owned by Sony and not Netflix, so they had the option to shop it around and see if another network would pick it up. Enter PopTV.
Season Four was picked up by PopTV in 2019 and began airing in early 2020. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, and the fact that they filmed in front of a live studio audience, production was shut down in March. And even with the creation of an animated episode that the actors recorded remotely, it was not enough for the network to keep it on. Showrunners Gloria Calderón-Kellett and Mike Royce decided to try one more time, and in October 2020, CBS aired the first six episodes of season four (those that had previously aired on PopTV) in an attempt to see if it would garner enough viewership to renew it for a fifth season on an over-the-air-network channel. And while the online evidence showed a strong turn-out for these reruns, it appears it was not enough. CBS decided that they were not going to pick up the show, and with a tweet from Calderón-Kellett and another from Royce, it seems as though that was the last shot.
It was the little show that could for four seasons. Really only three and a half, since there really wasn’t a conclusion to the story after episode six, but who’s counting. I will miss it quite a bit, but I know I can always go back and rewatch the show that provided such amazingly diverse and intersectional Latinx characters. And I’m writing an article on the show. It’s almost finished. It’ll be ready to send out to the journal at the end of this month. Although the academic publication timeline can be long, I expect it will be published at some point in 2021. Be on the lookout. I’ll be sure to announce it when it’s available.
