“Call Me Kat” – Mayim Bialik’s amiable, throwback sort of comedy – will be back next season.
The Fox network made the belated announcement today (May 10), just a week before it unveils its schedule for next fall. It even managed to somehow proclaim “Kat” (shown here with Bialik and Cheyenne Jackson) as “television’s #1 new comedy.”
It isn’t, by most ways of viewing Nielsen ratings: Many new comedies have more total viewers than “Kat”; one (CBS’ “United States of Al”) has twice as many.
If you only look at ages 18-49, “Kat” trails only NBC’s “Young Rock” among new comedies. But Fox points out that the “Kat” ratings more than double, once you include viewing on different platforms later in the same day.
The show is produced by Jim Parsons and stars Bialik (his “Big Bang Theory” wife) as a former scientist who uses her life savings to start a cat cafe. Based on a British show, if has the feeling of an old-school comedy, complete with actors waving to viewers during the closing credits.
It arrived during a year when Fox comedies (not counting cartoons) floundrred. “Kat” outdrew the final year of “Last Man Standing” and, by a huge margin, topped “The Moodys” and “Let’s Be Real.”