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A new show with a very out of the box premise just premiered on ABC: Downward Dog. A dramedy about a dog who has some issues with her person, and introspects on the relationship between him and her.
The dog is living with Nan, a single lady who works all day on an advertising agency.
The show is based on a webseries follows the day-to-day life of Nan (Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Allison Tolman, “Fargo”), as told by her increasingly lonely and philosophical dog, Martin (voiced by Samm Hodges). The new series has the distinction of being the first network comedy ever to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
Tweet this quoteAnd the plot synopsis tries to make sense of it:
Nan attempts to juggle her tumultuous personal life with a stressful career, unjustly supervised by her self-obsessed boss. Having her story told from the canine perspective provides a uniquely unfiltered point of view that helps us laugh and cry about what it means to be a human being in the twenty-first century. It’s a show about a dog and the girl he adores; and even at their worst, Nan and Martin just might be best for one another.
Looking at it from Broadcast perspective:
Good things about Downward Dog: The dog is a great actor. (I´m not crazy about the voice over though).
Bad things about Downward Dog: Mostly everything else.
It is a good show for a webseries, and maybe a good fit for a niche cabler, but this cannot by any means get the appeal of primetime broadcast, and I´m calling it a soon to be casualty to the cancellation virus in 2017.
My bet is the show will get to run the whole batch of episodes but won´t get a back order, nor a renewal.
All in all, it´s a show that some people would love, and that is why I call it a niche type show that will be a bad fit for broadcast. And in other words: not my cup of tea.
My verdict: It is a show that I most definitely don´t see potential to be a good performer for ABC. It won´t get beyond a few episodes (my most optimistic bet is 13, my most pessimistic is gone after 5). If this was on IFC we could see the show getting multiple seasons, but on ABC I´m sure it won´t.
Let me know your thoughts about Downward Dog if you´ve watched it. Will you give it a shot? Do you see it sticking on broadcast? Head to the comments and discuss. Or you can follow me on social media for more scoop.