Paramount+ axes SNL alum’s 100% Rotten Tomatoes series after one season

It’s been a bit of a rough-and-tumble year for Paramount+, and if you’ve been hoping to see more laughs on the streamer, you might want to look elsewhere. While the top brass have been busy merging with Skydance, hiking up subscription prices, and launching everything from a unified games studio to a monster UFC rights deal, the comedy slate has been left to gather dust. Tucked away in all this corporate noise was one bright spot: Crutch, the Tracy Morgan-led sitcom spun off from CBS’s The Neighborhood. Well, this week, its long wait for a decision officially ended—in exactly the way you probably guessed.

Crutch ran for a single season before its cast’s contract options lapsed at the end of 2025, quietly killing off any real chance at a renewal.

One of Paramount+'s best-reviewed comedies?

If you missed it, Crutch was a spin-off that actually managed to charm the (admittedly small pool of) critics who watched it. After Morgan turned up as Francois 'Frank' Crutchfield, cousin to Cedric the Entertainer’s character on The Neighborhood, CBS thought they’d give him a shot at his own show. The premise: Frank, a Harlem shop owner, thinks he’s finally got the flat to himself—only for his adult son and daughter to move back in. Sound familiar? Sure, but Morgan’s not exactly new to the sitcom game, and reviews were pretty glowing, at least for those who bothered to write them.

Crutch has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, but—and it’s a sizeable ‘but’—that’s from just five critics. So, not exactly Friends territory, but still a better track record than most comedies that shuffle through Paramount+ these days. If you were hoping that kind of notice would save it, though, unlucky. The streamer seems barely invested in making sitcoms, let alone keeping them on the books.

'Not a focus going forward'

Rumour meets reality here: soon after the Skydance tie-up was inked, Cindy Holland (the executive now in charge of all things streaming at Paramount+), basically confirmed that studio-style comedies aren’t a priority. Her reasoning? CBS already does those ‘fantastically’, so why clutter the streaming service with more. They haven’t hired anyone to actually look after comedy as a genre. Since this change at the top, you’d have a better chance finding a new sitcom order in a Christmas cracker.

Cindy Holland told Deadline there won't be much focus on multi-camera comedies at Paramount+, because 'CBS is already fantastic at them.'

There’s no sign anything will shift, either. Morgan’s already off starring in NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, which, oddly enough, is winning over critics too (currently holding a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score). CBS, meanwhile, is still where Paramount’s comedy ambitions live, but that doesn’t mean there’s a ton of new stuff coming.

CBS's real comedy play

The ‘main event’ for CBS’s sitcom world these days? Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, now heading into a third season as US broadcast’s top-rated comedy. Ghosts fans have to bide their time, though—season 6 is on hold until 2027. To tide everyone over, CBS says there’ll be two special hour-long Ghosts episodes (one for Halloween, one for Christmas) before it’s back properly in the spring.

As for anything actually new, CBS announced one rookie: Eternally Yours, a vampire comedy offered up at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and made by the folks behind Ghosts. It’s set to premiere 8 October—picking up the only open comedy slot for 2026-27. The other pilot didn’t make the cut, so it’s out before it even hit film. Creative risk-taking, eh?