The CBS-owned cable network Pop TV announced that it had revived the canceled Netflix sitcom after a widespread campaign to #SaveODAAT. The coming season, the show’s fourth overall, will span 13 episodes and premiere next year. As part of the Pop TV deal, it will also be broadcast in 2020 on CBS, which aired the original Norman Lear series more than 40 years ago.
“How amazing it is to be involved with this brilliant and culturally significant series that deals with important themes one minute while making you laugh the next,” Brad Schwartz, Pop TV’s president, said in a statement. “If ‘Schitt’s Creek’ has taught us anything, it’s that love and kindness always wins. . . . We couldn’t be more proud to continue telling heartwarming stories of love, inclusion, acceptance and diversity that pull on your emotions while putting a smile on your face.”
‘One Day of a Time’ followed the lively Alvarez family — helmed by Cuban American nurse and Afghanistan veteran Penelope (Justina Machado), a single mother with two teenage kids (Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz) — and was critically praised for its exploration of social issues. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner Rita Moreno played Penelope’s mother, Lydia.
Netflix caught flak in March for the manner in which it canceled the series. In tweets, the streaming service seemed to applaud itself for having aired a programme that provided Latinx viewers with a rare source of representation, but then axed it anyway. Netflix attributed the decision to low viewership, though the company famously keeps such numbers close to the vest.
In response to the cancellation, co-showrunners Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce had joined Lear, an executive producer, in thanking Netflix for the opportunity to make three seasons but emphasised that the fight to save ‘One Day at a Time’ was not over.
