#One Day at a Time: Season Five? Exec Producers Hope for Renewal, Talk Season Four Status

What’s next for One Day at a Time? Recently, executive producers Gloria Calderon Kellett and Norman Lear spoke with Deadline about the TV show’s debut on CBS and a possible fifth season.

Based on Lear’s 1975 sitcom, the comedy follows multiple generations of a Cuban-American family. The cast includes Justina Machado, Rita Moreno, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz, Todd Grinnell, Stephen Tobolowsky, Eric Nenninger, Ed Quinn, Fiona Gubelmann, Ariela Barer, and Froy Gutierrez.

The shortened fourth season of One Day at a Time premiered on CBS on October 5th. The show previously aired on Netflix before moving to Pop in 2020. Like many other TV shows, season four was cut short from 13 to six on-stage episodes because of the pandemic. A seventh episode, titled “The Politics Episode” was animated but CBS will not be airing it. So why isn’t CBS airing the episode? Executive producer Gloria Calderon Kellett told Deadline:

Thus far, they’re just airing the first six. So you’ll get to see 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.04, 4.05, 4.06. We would love for them to show 4.07, which is the animated episode, but thus far, they are not going to be airing that. We would love for them to do it, especially now that Black-ish is doing an animated episode using the guy, the Smiley Guy (Studios) that we used. Perhaps there will be more, but thus far, they have not ordered that one to air.

Executive producer Brent Miller added:

 Our hope is that they will air it because after we have a huge rating at CBS for three weeks in a row, I think they’re absolutely going to want to air that animated episode a week before the election because it is so important for the election.

And what about a fifth season? According to Deadline, the renewal decision hinges on how One Day at a Time performs on CBS Calderon Kellett commented:

This is very much a network broadcast multi-camera show in the form that Norman has been doing for his life, which is the living room, couch, the conversations about an American family in this moment in time. So to be able to have the opportunity to get the eyeballs of the CBS audience is an honor, and those are the people we’ve always wanted to talk to.”

What do you think? Have you seen One Day at a Time? Do you want a fifth season?