Tim Allen Excites Fans with Official Return Date for 'Last Man Standing'
Comedian Tim Allen’s latest sitcom has been revived after it was canceled by ABC last year despite consistently high ratings.
He was excited to share the news in a tweet this week, and many loyal “Last Man Standing” fans celebrated with him.
“Mark your calendar for Sep. 28th!” he tweeted.
Mark your calendar for Sept. 28th! @LastManStanding #LastManStanding pic.twitter.com/JMHMFzXZ0R
— Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) June 28, 2018
Allen’s character in the sitcom, Mike Baxter, has been widely associated with conservative viewpoints shared to some extent by the actor himself.
Following the show’s cancellation last year, he and many fans implied that those political opinions might have sealed its fate.
“There’s nothing more dangerous to me, especially in this climate, than a funny, likable conservative,” Allen said in an interview last year. “Because (Baxter) was mitigated on his show by a family of women that had different opinions — but the guy was a likable guy, a principled guy, just about work and ethics and all this stuff. I think there’s nothing more dangerous now than a likable conservative character.”
Still, he said at the time that he had “no idea why they did what they did” in reference to ABC’s decision to pull the plug on the show.
For its part, the network denied partisan differences played any role in what it described as a tough business move.
ABC President of Entertainment Channing Dungey said parent company Disney no longer found the series, which was not produced by the network’s studio, to be a profitable part of its lineup even though fans continued to watch.
He said the decision “was a challenging one” for him “because it was a steady performer in the ratings.”
It was not until ABC decided to revamp its lineup entirely that executives made the final call, he said.
“Once we made the decision to not continue with comedies on Friday, that was where we landed,” he said.
The show was produced by Twentieth Century Fox TV and new episodes will air on the Fox network later this year. As Deadline Hollywood reported earlier this year, rumors of such a revival have been circulating for months.
Allen alluded to the rumors in a tweet last month thanking fans for their continued calls for new episodes.
They heard all your voices people!! LMS just might be a reality. Keep it up. Who wants more #LastManStanding ?
— Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) May 3, 2018
“They heard all your voices people!!” he wrote. “LMS just might be a reality.”
Regardless of the ABC’s rationale, Allen has expressed disappointment in the way the network “put us out to pasture” after six seasons.
“You couldn’t have handled this worse,” he said of the situation. “Not for me, because I’ll survive, but there’s 190 of us that work there.”
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