I never saw this before so forgive me if it's very old news to most of you. I thought it was interesting.


http://www.sitcomsonline.com/jacksbistro/episodeguide-tc.html

And from what I saw, the overall ranking in the ratings for Three's Company in 1983-84 was #31. Big decline from #6 in 82-83, but I can see why ABC might have thought a spinoff could work. Maybe re-generate interest in the franchise. Shake things up.

ABC's whole Tuesday night lineup was crumbling around that time. Their biggest problem was NBC's the A-Team. Nothing they aired could compete with it. TAC's ratings were in the 30's too so it didn't fall off that much but it wasn't the big hit they wanted. I think if they gave it another year, ratings would have improved. ABC's Tuesday lineup improved the year after TAC left the air and the show it was paired with, WTB ended up in the top ten the following year.

I noticed this too. The ratings are in the Chris Mann book with the list of episodes.

ABC's whole Tuesday night lineup was crumbling around that time. Their biggest problem was NBC's the A-Team. Nothing they aired could compete with it. TAC's ratings were in the 30's too so it didn't fall off that much but it wasn't the big hit they wanted. I think if they gave it another year, ratings would have improved. ABC's Tuesday lineup improved the year after TAC left the air and the show it was paired with, WTB ended up in the top ten the following year.
I too think Three's a Crowd could have had a longer run if ABC just decided to stick with it, but according to Wikipedia they decided to pick up Diff'rent Strokes instead.

And then Wikipedia also said ABC offered another 13 episodes but Ritter said either give a whole season or he would walk, so ABC canceled it. Stupid on Ritter's part, but maybe because he gave such an ultimatum it meant he was ready to end the show anyway and wanted to move on to other things.

But I do think it would have eventually become a hit. Just needed more time. If NBC could renew Cheers after a disastrous rating in its first season, surely Three's a Crowd deserved another go.

But then again it may not have mattered because maybe Ritter was burned out on being Jack Tripper.

TAC was destined to fail right from the start because of how TC ended.

I saw most of TC in its original run. I didn't spend many years invested in the show, only to have the finale more about Vicky than the characters I spent years watching. I refused to even watch 1 episode of TAC.

After Jack opened his restaurant early in Season 7, TC started repeating plots from earlier episodes. That, IMO, was the beginning of the end. Therefore the big drop is Season 8.