'Ordinary Joe' Canceled: TV Show That Started At Syracuse Ends After ...

A new television series that started at Syracuse University has come to an end after just one season.

Deadline and Entertainment Weekly report NBC canceled “Ordinary Joe” last week, more than a month after the show’s season (and now series) finale aired in January. According to EW, the drama struggled with mixed reviews and poor ratings, despite being created by a big name: Matt Reeves, who directed “The Batman,” “Cloverfield,” and two “Planet of the Apes” movies, plus co-created “Felicity” with J.J. Abrams.

“Ordinary Joe” starred James Wolk (“Mad Men,” “Watchmen”) as Joe Kimbreau, a music major from New York who’s at a crossroads on his graduation day at SU in 2011. The pilot episode introduced three key people, who are also graduating from Syracuse: His best friend Eric (Charlie Barnett), his sort-of girlfriend Jenny (Elizabeth Lail), and a potential new flame named Amy (Natalie Martinez).

“They call graduation a commencement because it’s not the end, but the beginning of something new in your life,” Joe says.

Wearing an orange cap and gown, he soon realizes he has three clear paths: Go to dinner with his family, who is encouraging him to become a police officer like his father who was killed in New York City on Sept. 11; go to the beach with Jenny, who wants to “talk” about their future; or pursue Amy, a dreamer who makes him feel like he could become the next Billy Joel.

“You ever get that feeling that one choice could change your whole life?” Joe asks.

The series then takes a “Sliding Doors” approach, following Joe 10 years later as he lives three different lives in 2021. In one, he’s a rock star kissing Amy backstage at a sold-out concert while the crowd cheers his name. In the second, he’s a health care worker who’s married to Jenny with a special needs son. In the third, he joins the NYPD and is single, wondering “what if?” with his friend Eric.

The story was adapted from a pilot script by Reeves, who also executive produced the series. Showrunners Garrett Lerner and Russel Friend have no connection to Syracuse University, but they reportedly moved the original story from California to New York, which inspired them to make SU its starting point.

“I grew up on Oyster Bay, Long Island. So it was Billy Joel central,” Friend told Collider last fall. “We were just thinking, it might be cool to move it. Let’s set it in New York and you could maybe grow up in Queens. I have family who live in Flushing and it just felt like kind of the perfect location for this family whose dad was a cop. It just felt like the perfect location for him to grow up. And that’s where he met Eric and they were best friends. And then, from there it sort of just grew into everything else — sending them to Syracuse came out of that.”

Despite being set at Syracuse University, the pilot was shot in Chicago and other episodes were mainly filmed in Atlanta.

Other TV shows that have featured fictional Syracuse alumni include “New Girl” (Max Greenfield, Jake Johnson and Lamorne Morris as Schmidt, Nick Miller and Winston Bishop); “Rules of Engagement” (Patrick Warburton as Jeff Bingham); “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (Terry Crews as Terry Jeffords); and “Men of a Certain Age” (Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher as Joe Tranelli, Terry Elliott and Owen Thoreau Jr.).

“Ordinary Joe” premiered Sept. 20 on NBC. All 13 episodes can be streamed on Peacock and Hulu.