It's All Relative - Overview

Overview

The show, created by Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano, premiered on ABC on October 1, 2003 and aired to solid ratings until it was cancelled, with two episodes unaired, on April 6, 2004. While the final two episodes produced were never aired in the US during the show's original run, they have been broadcast in the original run of the show abroad (such as in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where the channel Trouble, aimed at teenagers, showed the episodes), as well as in reruns.

Although the show had a loyal audience, ABC pulled it two episodes short of completing its first and only season under the allegation of poor ratings. (In fact, no show scheduled opposite it had ever beaten it in the ratings until the arrival of The Simple Life and American Idol, and no show which followed it on ABC matched its ratings until Lost a few months later)

Many argued that what killed the show was its bad time slot, on Wednesday nights, but fans were rather suspicious that what actually would have caused cancellation was an alleged conservatism as well as censorship on the part of ABC and possibly some of the channel's audience. According to this theory, the presence of a gay couple, played by real-life gay actors (Christopher Sieber and John Benjamin Hickey) that had adopted and raised a child was too much of a shock and considered inappropriate for the time slot, which would be a more "familiar" one. ABC has vehemently denied that thesis, starting that show came in 69th that season, but fans were not convinced, and were particularly irritated by the fact that the creators and writers of the show were fired from ABC following the show's cancellation.

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