Fox Cancels Freshman Show ‘Almost Human’

As the television season comes to a close some freshman series are getting the boot. One of those brand new series is Fox’s Almost Human, which has been on the bubble for weeks due to poor ratings and failing to find an audience.

The futuristic drama starring Karl Urban and Michael Ealy got off to a rocky start back in November when the show debuted to low numbers. Although their ratings were low their audience was still considered strong for a niche genre, at least where Fox is concerned. Executives hoped that Almost Human would grow in their audience and become a cult hit, just like the Kevin Bacon series The Following, which is already renewed for a third season. Unfortunately, the series didn’t fare as well as its Monday night partner in crime.

The last straw for Almost Human was the poor ratings that were pulled in for the show’s season (now series) finale. The Fox show logged in a 1.5 rating in 18-49 which matched the ratings for The Following, except the latter show has a bigger following on DVR.

According to Deadline, Almost Human’s chances of survival started to slip once Fox decided to drop brand new pilots to see which show would act stronger and gain the slot for renewal. Three brand new shows — Gotham, The Red Band Society, and Empire were all strong contenders and seemed to outperform the Michael Ealy series.

Almost Human was made by the team behind Fox’s show Fringe including producer J.J. Abrams and J.H. Wyman. The sci fi drama was set in the future of 2048 where every LA police officer is paired with a robot partner. Karl Urban played the Los Angeles police officer while Michael Ealy took the role of the robot.

The critics didn’t seem to really dig the show either. The A.V. Club reviewed the show after its premiere:

“Generic cop heroes aren’t always a problem if the show around them boasts other interesting characters or an intriguing premise. Almost Human has both, but, sadly, everything else in the show’s universe takes more after the Urban side of things than the Ealy.”

While the Washington Post had less than favorable things to say about Almost Human back in September:

“Another dull example of the manufacturing of sci-fi factory goods with the (increasingly devalued) J.J. Abrams label slapped on.”

As we previously reported, the writing was practically on the wall for Almost Human when Fox decided to delay the premiere by two weeks. That’s never a good sign in general, and it looks like the show never really recovered.

[Image Credit: Fox]