Saladin K. Patterson’s reboot of The Wonder Years will not be returning for a third season on ABC.
As broken by Deadline, ABC has opted to pull the plug on The Wonder Years after two seasons. The Disney-owned network may have foreshadowed this development when it pushed The Wonder Years Season 2’s premiere from midseason to summer, as the latter window is often occupied by shows that have either already been canceled or are likely to be canceled.
Upon its debut in 2021, The Wonder Years was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. However, the coming-of-age comedy series struggled to attract and maintain a large audience, particularly in its second season. Deadline reports that The Wonder Years Season 2 was ABC’s least-watched show — both for this summer and for the 2022-2023 season as a whole.
While The Wonder Years has been canceled, the jury remains out on fellow ABC shows The Rookie: Feds and Home Economics, both of which are still awaiting renewal decisions. The Good Lawyer pilot is also awaiting word on a series pickup. All of these projects are in a state of limbo due the the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and are reportedly more likely to be canceled the longer the strikes go on.
The Wonder Years reboot offered a new take on a classic
Patterson’s The Wonder Years is based on the 1988-1993 ABC series of the same name created by Neal Marlens and Carol Black. The reboot centers on Dean Williams (Elisha “EJ” Williams), an imaginative 12-year-old growing up in a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama during the 1960s. Don Cheadle serves as the show’s narrator, providing the voice of an older Dean. The main cast also includes Dulé Hill and Saycon Sengbloh as Dean’s parents, as well as Laura Kariuk’s as Dean’s sister, Kim.
Both seasons of The Wonder Years are currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.