Why I think this show was cancelled

One and only reason matters. Not enough people were watching, simple.

Betsy Brandt! What fxxxing idiot thought she was a good choice to play his wife when they had the perfect actress right there in his real life wife! They had ZERO chemistry. And the whole 'speaking to camera' a la Modern Family got tiring real fast!

I think it's because it's uncomfortable and hard watching someone shaking and moving in a weird way and pretending it's not happening, that it's just normal.

You can't focus on comedy or a storyline, if all you can think is "that poor guy is giving a good effort, I wonder how much he must be suffering", or if you are forced to focus on an illness every time the star of the show is on screen.

It's like the audience is asked to pretend everything is fine and dandy, while Michael talks in an odd (and very different from his 'healthy' days) way and shakes constantly. It's like watching someone being tortured, and yet trying to ignore it to enjoy the storyline or jokes.

Sorry, but it's not gonna happen. It's just impossible to look at someone 'in pain' (though the viewer can't confirm that one way or another), and focus on something they are saying instead of how they are saying it.

There might be freaks or inhuman, cold psychopaths out there, who can enjoy this kind of stuff, but frankly, I don't think anyone with even a shred of humanity in them can really 'get past' what's really going on right in front of their faces.

It's like an elephant in the room that we are all supposed to ignore - I notice that even on this thread, this subject is carefully avoided and danced around. It always takes someone, who doesn't care about 'social conventions' or believe in the hypocrisy and lies of what people call 'politeness' to talk about the truth.

On this planet, telling the truth is really a revolutionary, almost unheard-of act.. but to me, it's just normal.

Which is something this show certainly isn't.

When people want entertainment, they want escapism to a better and higher reality than the bleak, mundane, painful everyday 'reality' of their dreary lives. They don't want to be hit in the face with someone's sickness and try to find it funny. It's uncomfortable to say the least, it's painful and awkward.

Michael J. Fox has been a really good actor in really good pieces of entertainment, like Back to the Future. I think that movie is the highest point of his 'charm' and shows off his acting talent the best. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like him - there was something unexplainable about the whole jeans+sneakers-appearance of him in that movie, that I wanted to mimic.

Can anyone honestly watch this show and think the same about him? Does anyone watch this show and think: "I want to be just like him"?

He was funny in Curb your Enthusiasm, although it was still a bit difficult to watch. CyE is known for its 'edgy' stuff, and the whole plotline revolved around his illness, so it fit.

But a TV show, where you would have to keep watching him 'struggle' with his illness constantly..?

The audience would have to be slightly sadistic to want to watch that - and perhaps also a bit masochistic.

It might be slightly different if he had never appeared in anything before - but when you have seen him in Back to the Future, and then you see him like this.. the comparison alone makes it a brutal experience.

I know there's a "tolerance" trend, and "politically-correct" crap gets foothold more every day. You are supposed to celebrate the gay agenda, you are supposed to tolerate every and any 'minority' or 'debilitated' human being on television, you are supposed to cheer for retards or cripples (I call them by their real names - besides, using a term like 'disabled' is more insulting than 'cripple', because it has larger connotations, whereas 'cripple' simply means that their body is damaged. 'Disabled' would mean they are not able at all, when they can be perfectly able in many ways), obese monsters, bald feminazis and politicians.

But in reality, who wants to watch that stuff, other than trying to seem 'tolerant' to others? If people can choose their viewings privately, without anyone knowing about them, would all that be really what they would choose, or would they rather use the television for what it's intended; ESCAPISM?

You can't escape by watching ill people, sick people or retarded mongoloids or cripples.

THAT is why this show was cancelled. It just doesn't work.

It should have aired on IFC.
I looked up MJF after being curious how he's been doing. Although I did see the show advertised I rarely watch prime time because of shows that are either reality tv and dancing with the stars. But I'm going to watch this. I wish it lasted longer.

It all comes down to ratings. It just didn't find the viewers it needed.
Could have been a better show too yes, that would have helped :-)

No this show was cancelled because it was poorly planned and terribly produced and acted. It seemed to have a style from the sitcoms in late 90's or early 2000's rather than the modern sitcom of the 2010's. I'm guessing that was because that was the last era Michael J Fox produced and acted in television.. the late 90's. It was dreadful.

The aspect of his illness and its toll was of the lesser problem. It was funny to read a few posts in this forum of people thinking it was cancelled because ''Fox looked too sick'' - no, that wasn't just it. It was very obvious though he wasn't capable of doing T.V again and was just forcing himself to do it.

Michael J. Fox puts some of the blame for The Michael J. Fox Show's failure on NBC

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/magazine/six-things-we-learned-from-our-michael-j-fox-interview.html

In a New York Times Magazine profile, Fox reveals new health scares amid his battle with Parkinson's disease. The former Family Ties star's brief return to the sitcom world in the 2013-14 season is also briefly addressed, with Fox saying that he doesn't think NBC was prepared to work with him -- and his disease. "I didn’t have the energy to keep the show on the track that I’d set it out on," he says. "And I think there was some trepidation on the part of the network. This is probably unfair but I feel like one day they woke up and said, 'Oh, he really has Parkinson’s.' Like somebody saw me tremoring in rehearsal and said, 'What’s wrong with him?' 'Uh, he has Parkinson’s, remember? It’s the premise of the show.' But the point was never that Parkinson’s is funny. It’s about how we take on things in our lives, and how that reaction is reinforced by the reactions of the people around us. Like, my family is extraordinary because they give me (expletive) all the time. Because to not do that." Fox also discussed leaving Spin City after realizing his particular acting charm was beginning to fade due to his Parkinson's. “I used a lot of high-level muggery,” he says. “I could pull a face; I could do a double take. And one of the reasons I left Spin City was that I felt my face hardening.”