This time of year can be stressful for TV lovers, as a number of shows typically await word about being renewed or canceled now. April brought the unfortunate news that the lovely crime dramedy So Help Me Todd was axed by CBS, and May 16 saw its swan song as it joined the list of shows canceled in 2024. Now, star Marcia Gay Harden has shared some insider info that I didn’t realize impacted the cancellation.
What Did So Help Me Todd’s Marcia Gay Harden Reveal About The Cancellation?
Anyone who’s been paying attention to the television business over the past several years will know that it’s an incredibly crowded one, and therefore tough to both get a show on the air and to have it succeed enough to be renewed. Though the Marcia Gay Harden and Skylar Astin-starring series made it through its first and second seasons, it turned out that a number of factors went into it being cut from the 2024 TV schedule for the fall. And, as she recently told Us Weekly, she thinks that some behind the scenes business moves may have had a big impact. Harden noted:
Paramount is being bought by somebody. We don’t know who and so CBS had numbers to reach and whatever the mystery goes behind it, why they chose our show to go rather than another one, we don’t know.
So Help Me Todd was hardly the highest rated network show, however, the numbers were considered to be generally solid. But, we’d heard previously that the combo of being the lowest rated show on CBS, plus the network not having enough scheduling space for it and all the new and returning series, is what really led millions of disappointed fans to getting a Season 2 finale that had to serve as the series finale. Now, it sounds like there could have been even more factors at play.
So Help Me Todd’s Creator Revealed What Would Have Happened If It Wasn’t Canceled, And I Totally Understand Skylar Astin’s Take
Paramount has been in the process of negotiating a sale with different potential parties for several months now, but it really hadn’t occurred to me that that might have led shows like Todd and NCIS: Hawai’i being killed. It does make some sense, though. As the star said, no one who’s in charge of a multi-billion dollar corporation looking to buy Paramount is going to want to take on something when it can be seen as having too much dead weight attached.
While there are several new series on the way for CBS that are far from guaranteed to be hits (like the Young Sheldon spinoff, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage and the Kathy Bates-led Matlock reboot), the thought could have been that banking on new content with basically unproven potential was better than sticking with programs that weren’t pulling in more eyeballs.
Whatever the full reason behind Todd being let go is, it’s still really sad that it won’t return for at least Season 3 and get a chance to have a proper sendoff. But, I can attest to the fact that it makes a great re-watch, and you can catch both seasons with your Paramount+ subscription.