"The Break with Michelle Wolf" & "The Joel McHale Show" Canceled at Netflix
by Nellie Andreeva
August 17, 2018


Netflix continues to figure out its way in the comedy talk show arena. The Internet network has opted not to continue with two recent entries in the genre, "The Break with Michelle Wolf" and "The Joel McHale Show".

Both shows were toplined by comedy personalities with successful track records, McHale as long-time host of "The Soup" on E! and Wolf as writer and contributor on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah".




"The Joel McHale Show" debuted in February with a 13-episode season and one episode put out a week. That was followed by an order for six additional episodes. The streaming network tried a different release pattern for the extra episodes, which all premiered on July 15.

"The Break‘s" 10-episode season premiered in May and aired over 10 weeks, with a finale on July 29.




While "The Joel McHale Show" had a relatively quiet run, "The Break" launched with a bang, The first trailer for the show was released in April, immediately following Wolf’s polarizing and much talked-about hosting stint at the White House Correspondents Dinner. On the show, Wolf continued with her provocative political jabs that made headlines.

In the end, sources say neither show drew enough viewership to secure a renewal. "The Break" and "The Joel McHale Show" followed Netflix’s first foray into the comedy talk show genre with "Chelsea", which ran for two seasons.

https://deadline.com/2018/08/the-break-with-michelle-wolf-the-joel-mchale-show-canceled-netflix-1202447909/

Bummer about Wolf. Never saw it (don't have Netflix), but was still rooting for her.

Bummer about Wolf. Never saw it (don't have Netflix), but was still rooting for her.


Can't imagine why you were 'rooting for her'. :rolleyes:

Maybe she can go on the correspondent's dinner circuit.

Netflix accused of acting "classlessly" in canceling The Break with Michelle Wolf (https://www.thedailybeast.com/netflixs-classless-cancellation-of-michelle-wolfs-the-break)
Netflix saved the news that it had canceled Michelle Wolf's The Break and The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale for the time of the week when bad news is usually dumped: at the end of the workday on a Friday (https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/michelle-wolf-joel-mchale-tnetflix-1202909399/). According to the Daily Beast, the news came as a shock to Wolf's writing staff and showrunners, who learned of the cancelation on Twitter. “None of us can believe how classlessly Netflix has handled this,” a source tells The Daily Beast's Matt Wilstein. It's unknown how many people watched The Break, but her clips did generate headlines. "Wolf, whose HBO special Nice Lady was recently nominated for an Emmy Award, will almost certainly land on her feet somewhere," says Wilstein. "But the fact that Netflix didn’t give her more of a chance, especially given its massive content budget and general willingness to renew mediocre shows, is a shame." Meanwhile, neither Wolf (https://twitter.com/michelleisawolf) nor McHale (https://twitter.com/joelmchale) reacted to the cancelation news on their social media accounts. ALSO: Late-night's bull market might be nearing its cyclical end. (https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/late-night-tv-michelle-wolf-joel-mchale-robin-thede-1202909620/)

Netflix didn't give Michelle Wolf and Joel McHale the constant promotion that talk shows require (https://decider.com/2018/08/21/mcihelle-wolf-joel-mchale-cancelation-netflix/)
The streaming service may have promoted The Break with Michelle Wolf and The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale on its YouTube channel, but both shows were noticeably absent from Netflix's famous recommendation engines, according to Kayla Cobb. She points out that Wolf and McHale's shows appeared fully developed from the get-go, which made their cancelation even more dumbfounding. "More than any other type of programming, talk shows require constant promotion," she says. "Their value comes from their ability to quickly react to the news, something that allows them to transition into a trusted household name over time. And that can never happen if a company buries its talk shows and cuts them down before they ever gain traction."

Joel McHale pretends to be shocked more than 72 hours after Netflix's cancelation (https://twitter.com/joelmchale/status/1031722588421017606)
"Wait whaaaaaaaaa!?!?!?" McHale wrote Monday night in his first tweet since Netflix canceled The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale on Friday. He was responding to a Twitter user saying she was "so mad" that his show was canceled.

Samantha Bee finds Michelle Wolf and Robin Thede cancelations "very disheartening" (https://www.thedailybeast.com/samantha-bee-michelle-wolf-and-robin-thede-cancellations-very-disheartening)
“I’m really, really sad about it,” the Full Frontal host says of BET canceling The Rundown with Robin Thede (https://www.tvtattle.com/item/BET-cancels-The-Rundown-with-Robin-Thede-after-one-season-70SJol) and Netflix axing The Break with Michelle Wolf (https://www.tvtattle.com/item/Netflix-cancels-Michelle-Wolf-and-Joel-McHales-talk-shows-olS6nk) over the past month. Bee tells The Daily Beast: “You have to take time as a network to develop things. If it’s not working for you in the time slot or whatever, you have to give a show more than 10 episodes to find its legs. It’s brutal. Shows need time to find their audience and they need adequate advertising. They need adequate promotional pushes to make that happen.”

Is snark dead in late-night? (http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/michelle-wolf-joel-mchale-and-the-death-of-late-night-snark.html)

"The era of the Late Night Meanie is over," says Bethy Squires, in reaction to the cancelations of Netflix's The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale and The Break with Michelle Wolf. "Gone are the days when we’d line up for our nightly hate f*ck from David Letterman. Maybe the world is too cruel to sustain nightly acerbic wit, but the acid-tongued comic is no longer the prototypical late-night host. The format is dominated by happy, smiling Jameses. And next fall will see several actors known for their cheery dispositions take over the late-night scene. Hasan Minhaj, Busy Philipps, Jerry O’Connell, and Niecy Nash (with a pilot in the works (https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/niecy-nash-tnt-late-night-series-1202910088/)) are in; Michelle Wolf, Joel McHale, and Robin Thede are out. And Conan O’Brien is stuck in the middle." Squires adds: "Back in the day, late-night TV was dominated by somewhat detached father figures who knew magic tricks, then, thanks to Letterman laying the groundwork, Jon Stewart and Conan opened the door for the snarky and smart. But now snark feels mean and smart feels pyrrhic. News commentary shows abound, but I hear more people talk about the impassioned pleas of Rachel Maddow than the somewhat removed perspective of Trevor Noah."

ALSO:

The Break with Michelle Wolf was never going to be the new The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (https://www.westword.com/film/michelle-wolf-deserves-better-fate-than-losing-late-night-war-10688266)
The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale was canceled because its Soup-like premise was laughably outdated in this era of instant video sharing (https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/08/the-joel-mchale-show-like-the-soup-before-it-was-t.html)

Honestly, neither were good shows. They wont be missed.

Joel McHale on his talk show cancelation: “Obviously Netflix has trained their audience to binge watch" (https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/joel-mchale-on-cancellation-netflix-is-king-of-the-world-right-now-1202918266/)
The former Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale show host said on the Jim Norton and Sam Roberts Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MAtroEeK0w) that Netflix viewers expect their shows to be binge-watched, which is why his show went from airing weekly for its first 13 episodes to dropping the final six on the same day in July. McHale joked that he's grateful that he doesn't have to watch Real Housewives anymore. Still, McHale was grateful to have had the gig. “They are the king of the world right now, so believe me, I was very happy about the opportunity,” he said.

It's hard not to think of Michelle Wolf's cancelation in wake of Norm Macdonald Has a Show (https://www.thedailybeast.com/norm-macdonald-has-a-terrible-show-michelle-wolf-had-a-great-one-why-are-we-settling)
The Break with Michelle Wolf and Norm Macdonald Has a Show only have the Netflix connection in common. Otherwise, they're not connected at all. Yet Macdonald's "sh*tty show" feels like a taunt coming so soon after Wolf's cancelation, says Kevin Fallon. "Norm Macdonald has a show and Michelle Wolf does not. That’s aggravating," he says. "It’s aggravating because of what Wolf’s show and her material contributed to the national discourse, and the utter pointlessness of what’s happening on Macdonald’s series. And it’s aggravating that this is the show we’re given in the wake of Macdonald’s controversial comments (last) week. All that... for this?" Fallon says Wolf's The Break "was a sharply written, carefully planned, high-production gem, a valuable and critically valued descendant of The Daily Show with a necessary point of view. (A woman’s!)" Meanwhile, Fallon adds, "Norm Macdonald Has a Show doesn’t even approach anything arguably valuable. In the first episode, David Spade gamely tells stories from the start of his career, but Macdonald barely seems to be paying attention. Everyone is maniacally laughing through the whole thing, but you can’t shake the notion that you just walked in on your uncles having beers in the garage cracking themselves up, but you’re just not in on the joke."

That's too bad. I like her!

How Netflix could fix its talk show problem (https://decider.com/2018/09/18/how-netflix-can-fix-its-talk-shows/)

After the failures of Joel McHale, Michelle Wolf's and Chelsea Handler's talk shows, Netflix maybe should combine the binge model with the weekly release model.

Honestly, neither were good shows. They wont be missed.

The Joel McHale Show was basically The Soup just with a different name but I liked it. And I'll miss it.

Ed.