(Photo: Michael Courtney/CBS)
Margaret and Todd’s time has run out. CBS has cancelled So Help Me Todd, so the series won’t return for a third year during the 2024-25 TV season.
A legal dramedy series, the So Help Me Todd TV show stars Marcia Gay Harden, Skylar Astin, Madeline Wise, Tristen J. Winger, Inga Schlingmann, and Rosa Arredondo. In season two, Heather Morris recurs, and Lisa Rinna and Sandra Bernhard guest. In the story, Margaret Wright (Harden) is a razor-sharp and successful attorney who is reeling from the recent dissolution of her marriage. Her son Todd (Astin) is a quick-thinking former private detective who’s fallen on hard times after his “flexible interpretation of the law” got his license revoked. Though Margaret’s high standards and strict adherence to the law are at complete odds with Todd’s scrappy and seat-of-his-pants methods, she asks him to join her firm as the in-house investigator. Working together as a mother and son team is a big first step toward mending their fragile and dysfunctional relationship. In season two, having regained his license, Todd decides to open his own private investigation business.
Airing on Thursday nights, the second season of So Help Me Todd currently averages a 0.34 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 4.47 million viewers. Compared to season one, that’s down by 4% in the demo and down by 3% in viewership in the live+same day ratings (includes DVR playback through 3:00 AM).
So Help Me Todd and CSI: Vegas (which was also cancelled today) are the network’s lowest-rated original scripted series in the traditional ratings. In the live+35-day multi-platform ratings, episodes typically draw more than seven million viewers.
Six of So Help Me Todd’s ten-episode second season have aired so far. The de facto series finale is scheduled to air on May 16th, and because the cancellation was not expected, the drama will reportedly end with a big cliffhanger.
In a post on Instagram, series creator Scott Prendergast reacted to the cancellation news:
“Thank you CBS for the phenomenal opportunity. CBS is truly a wonderful place to work. Everyone is so supportive, respectful and SMART. Every single executive I interacted with had only one goal in mind: how do we turn your idea into a great show on CBS? Working on this level, with this scope, with these actors, on these sets, with these writers, with this brilliant crew, this wardrobe, these editors, these composers, these creative executives who care so very much – has been the best professional experience of my life. What a privilege to stand on our huge stages and watch all these magicians at work. It is so extraordinary to get to dream up these ideas and characters and jokes and stories and then stand back as incredibly talented professionals bring them to life. WHAT LUCK! WHAT JOY! WHAT GREAT SUCCESS! I took a story about me and my Mom and hundreds of people came together to build it into something else, something huge, something beautiful, something funny. Thank you to everyone involved, and to all our viewers. One million thank yous will never be enough.
Thank you, thank you, thank Todd for you. And goodbye.”
What do you think? Have you enjoyed watching the So Help Me Todd TV series on CBS? Are you disappointed to hear the series wasn’t renewed for a third season?