Dharma & Greg - Ratings and Cancellation

Ratings and Cancellation

The series was a top-25 fixture in the US during its first three seasons, first airing Wednesday at 8:30 pm, then at 8:00. It was moved to Tuesdays at 9pm during its third season where it experienced a dramatic ratings lift thanks to a lead-in of the then red-hot Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. As ratings for that series waned in 2000/2001, Dharma & Greg suffered a similar fate, compounded by NBC moving Frasier into the same time slot. As Millionaire fell even further and was moved off the night in the fall of 2001, ABC tried to rebuild a Tuesday night comedy block consisting of Dharma & Greg, What About Joan?, Bob Patterson and Spin City. The move was ill-fated, however, with sophomore Joan lasting just two episodes and Patterson five. Dharma & Greg and Spin City shared the 8pm timeslot for the rest of the season, despite ever-declining ratings.

The final episode aired on April 30, 2002 to just 6.8 million viewers, compared to the 20 million the series had peaked at just two years previously. Along with Ally McBeal, Dharma & Greg was one of the last two surviving shows to debut during the 1997-98 season, one of the weakest in television history for new shows. (Only seven shows to debut would be picked up for a second season, and only Ally McBeal and Dharma & Greg would last longer than three seasons, each providing enough episodes for syndication.) Both shows ended at the end of the 2001-02 season, just five years after their debut.