Eric Liebowitz/NBCNBC's Thursday night lineup just lost some more star power.
NBC has pulled Michael J. Fox's freshman sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show from its schedule, replacing it with Jane Lynch's Hollywood Game Night once the Olympics are over, sources confirm to E! News.
The most recent episode of struggling comedy pulled in just 2.2 million viewers and a 0.7 rating in the adults 18-49 demo. Just last week, NBC shut down production on Sean Hayes' freshman comedy Sean Saves the World, which aired immediately after Fox's show on Thursday nights.
Last summer, NBC was so confident in Fox's show, his first regular TV gig since Spin City in 2000, that they immediately picked it up to series, bypassing the standard pilot process.
The Michael J. Fox Show's cancellation shouldn't come as much of a surprise given NBC boss Robert Greenblatt's recent comments about its performance, as well as Sean Saves the World, saying, "We're really unhappy we can't find an audience for them in those time periods. We're still going to work hard to see what we can do on Thursday nights, but it's a real uphill battle."
After the lackluster ratings for Sean Saves the World and The Michael J. Fox Show, Greenblatt said NBC will be more cautious in the future about green-lighting projects in the future based solely on star power. "It's hard to launch comedy even in the best of circumstances, so I guess I would say I'm more weary. It just means we have to work harder. Comedy is hard," he said.
Vulture first reported the news of Hollywood Game Night taking over the 9 p.m. timeslot.
(E! Online and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)