Undateable

Premise

Danny Burton is a 34-year-old carefree single guy who has watched most of his friends move on to serious relationships. When his last remaining single friend Shannon moves out to get married, Danny searches for a new roommate. A promising candidate is Justin, the owner of Black Eyes Bar (frequently mispronounced "Black Guys Bar") in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. Justin and his friends – the creepy Burski, oddball Shelly, and recently out-of-the-closet Brett – all have certain qualities that make them appear "undateable". While Danny himself has good luck getting women into bed, he is unable or unwilling to form a lasting commitment with any of them. Danny's older sister, Leslie, has similar fears about being undateable, having the "baggage" of being a mid-30s divorcee.

Main

Recurring

Development and casting

NBC purchased the script from Bill Lawrence in October 2012. Casting for the pilot began in early 2013, with Brent Morin and Rick Glassman being cast in February and Bianca Kajlich and Chris D'Elia being cast in March. Matthew Wilkas was also cast in March as Brett, Justin's gay friend. Aly Michalka was originally cast as Maddie, a waitress in Justin's bar and Justin's love interest, but she left the show in April 2013 and was replaced with Briga Heelan in a guest star role as the similar character Nicki.

Filming

In May 2013, NBC placed a series order for Undateable. After the series was ordered, Wilkas left and was replaced with David Fynn in the role of Brett. When both Undateable and Ground Floor, which stars Heelan, were picked up as series, Megan Park was cast to replace Heelan in the Nicki role. However, by September of that year, the producers were able to arrange the schedules of the two shows so that Heelan could appear on Undateable as Nicki on a recurring basis, and she replaced Park.

In March 2014, Lawrence, Morin, Glassman, Funches, and D'Elia launched an 8-city comedy tour to promote the show.

On May 5, 2015, the show was presented live in a one-hour episode that featured numerous guest stars. Based on the reception to that episode, NBC made the decision to feature all live episodes for Season 3, with each episode featuring a musical guest. Starting with season 3, Undateable aired two feeds, one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast, both of which were available online after the show aired on its linear broadcast.

On November 13, 2015, 30 minutes before air time, a decision was made to pre-empt the then-upcoming live program due to the November 2015 Paris attacks. The next week, during the November 20 live episode, references were made about the attack.

Critical response

Undateable initially received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds a 38% rating, based on 16 reviews, with the consensus reading: "Largely bereft of originality or humor, Undateable is underwhelming." On Metacritic, the first season has a score of 49 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The third season finale "averaged a 0.8/3 in 18–49 and 2.7 million viewers overall, placing fourth among the Big Four but matching the show's top score since mid-October." Due to the success of the Season 2 finale going live, the decision was made to renew Undateable for an all-live Season 3, broadcasting live for both the East and West Coast feeds.