NBC Cancels ‘Welcome To Sweden’ Citing Abysmal Ratings – Creator Greg Poehler Promises ‘Best Is Yet To Come’
NBC has decided to cancel Welcome to Sweden, citing abysmally low ratings. The show has been abruptly pulled from the schedule a mere two weeks into its second season.
Produced by Amy Poehler with Carrie Stein, Fredrik Arefalk, and her brother Greg, who also stars in the show, Welcome to Sweden reportedly turned up very bad numbers in its rating ensuring its premature departure from primetime television. The sitcom is an international acquisition produced by Entertainment One TV4, FLX, and Syskon, reported The Wrap. Incidentally, the show even aired on Swedish network TV4.
Categorically stating “NBC has ended his comedy due to some craptastically low ratings in the U.S.,” Greg announced the news through Instagram,
“I am eternally grateful to all of our fans. When you make a show – and write, produce, obsess and and act in it – all you want us for someone, somewhere, to tell you they appreciate it. There have been so many of you in both Sweden and the U.S. that have done so, and every compliment has made me immeasurably happy. So, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I’m sitting here crying, but mostly because I’ll prob never work with Josephine [Bornebusch], Christopher [Wagelin], Lena [Olin], Per [Svensson] and Claes [Mansson] again. They are among the best people I’ve ever met and I am so so happy and grateful that they let me act with them. Worry not. The best is yet to come. For me and for you.”
Welcome to Sweden was meant to be an international project. Filmed in Sweden with American and Swedish actors, the sitcom was supposed to be an eye-opening and comical journey about cultures and their nuances, apart from the clashes that usually ensue. Interestingly, the production is said to be loosely based on Greg Poehler’s real-life experience. He reportedly fell in love with a Swedish woman, and so enamored was he that Greg took a life-altering decision to move to her home country, just to be with her.
Though the concept was great and the baseline solid, Welcome to Sweden clearly didn’t have the power to keep the audience glued. When the series premièred last year, Variety’s TV critic Brian Lowry didn’t have a whole lot of praise for it. Putting it as mildly as possible, he said,
“Despite rifling through all the usual and uncomfortable moments, the show has an understated charm and amusing characters.”
The first season couldn’t set the pace and clearly NBC didn’t have the patience to slug it out while the sitcom was struggling. In its final airing last Sunday, it averaged a mere 0.2 rating in the age group of 18-49 and an audience pool of 1.1 million viewers, reported MSN.
[Image Credit | Variety via MSN]
