'Fresh Off the Boat' barely avoids cancellation

The Huang family in the sitcom 'Fresh Off the Boat' is one of the few Asian American families on network TV.

ASAM NEWS

IT'S OFFICIAL. Fresh off the Boat will be coming back next year for its fifth season on ABC.

The show made the announcement on social media.

Anxiety was high that ABC would cancel the series. Randall Park who plays the dad, Louis Huang, half jokingly made a video for USA Today “begging” fans to lobby the network to bring the series back.

TV analysts had listed the show as “on the bubble,” meaning it was likely being eyed by the network for cancellation.

Fresh Off the Boat is produced by 20th Century Fox. Back in December, Disney which owns ABC announced it was buying assets from 20th Century Fox, including TV and film, for $52.4 billion. Assuming the sales goes through, that would mean Disney would have direct ownership of Fresh Off the Boat and would benefit from syndication rights. The fifth season is considered essential if a show is to be syndicated.

Whatever the reason, today’s announcement is good news for fans and one of the few Asian American families on network television right now. It stars Constance Wu, Randall Park, Hundson Yang, Ian Chen, Forest Wheeler, and Lucille Soong as the Huang family, loosely based on the memoir of restaurateur Eddie Huang.

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