As NBC prepares to revamp the floundering Up All Night by turning the single-camera comedy into a more traditional multicamera sitcom, Deadline reports on one other major facet of its never-ending retooling: Series star Christina Applegate has decided to exit the show, announcing her departure before filming begins on any of those desperate last-bid, live audience episodes. “It’s been a great experience working on Up All Night, but the show has taken a different creative direction and I decided it was best for me to move on to other endeavors,” Applegate said in a statement that acknowledges what no one else on the show’s staff or at NBC has been willing to, apparently, even after the departure of creator Emily Spivey and two different showrunners since.
While no decision on Up All Night’s fate has been officially announced in the wake of Applegate’s decision, the comedy is, as always, in such a constant state of flux—reportedly still even considering whether it wants to be more of a family or workplace comedy after all this time—that it could simply call it quits right now if it wanted to, leaving behind a legacy as a noble endeavor that somehow failed despite endless, constant tinkering, second-guessing, and a complete abandonment of its core premise.
But since this is NBC, the network is reportedly looking to soldier on—beginning with considering replacing Applegate with Lisa Kudrow, ostensibly believing that, given the show’s already-mangled run, why not just swap out its principal star for another blonde lady? Maybe they could also trade Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph for Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox, swap the baby for Matt LeBlanc, and instead of it being a show about new parents, it could be about a group of friends just hanging out in New York?