Day 1 of Writing a Blog Until NBC Brings Back ‘Stumble’

NBC canceled Stumble too soon, and I’m here to complain about it.

I have a complaint.

NBC canceled Stumble after one season.

And before anyone emails me the ratings: I know.

People didn’t watch it.

In fact, Stumble was NBC’s least-watched series of the season.

That’s a pretty compelling argument from NBC.

Unfortunately, I have a counterargument:

I liked it.

And because this is the internet, I believe that makes us equally qualified to have this discussion.

So welcome to:

Day 1 of Writing a Blog Until NBC Brings Back Stumble.

To be clear, I’m not actually going to write about Stumble every day.

That would rapidly transform this website from an entertainment publication into evidence.

But every time I write about Stumble, the number goes up.

Today is Day 1.

First, I understand how television works. Unfortunately.

Stumble premiered on NBC in November 2025. It got 13 episodes. The finale aired March 13, 2026, and NBC canceled the show on May 1.

I understand the decision on paper.

Television is a business. Shows cost money. Networks need viewers. Advertisers need viewers. Eventually somebody opens a spreadsheet, sees a number highlighted in red and says:

“Well, Courteney Potter had a good run.”

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Because Stumble had something I increasingly appreciate in television:

It was fun.

Not “prestige television where everyone is miserable but the cinematography is incredible” fun.

Actual fun.

It was ridiculous without feeling stupid. Sweet without becoming syrupy. Its characters could be disasters without becoming people you hated spending 22 minutes with.

Most importantly, it understood something a surprising amount of comedy forgets:

You can make fun of people without hating them.

That is basically the entire Goodnight, Internet employee handbook.

We don’t actually have an employee handbook.

We barely have employees.

But if we did, that would probably be somewhere near the top.

Stumble was allowed to be nice

The premise itself sounds like somebody built a television show specifically to make me happy: a competitive-cheer mockumentary about Courteney Potter rebuilding her career with a junior-college squad of lovable weirdos.

You give me an underdog sports story, a mockumentary camera and people taking something absurdly seriously?

I’m already seated.

Then the show committed the unforgivable crime of making me care about everybody.

That’s where NBC got me.

The jokes didn’t require every character to secretly despise everyone else. The show could make somebody ridiculous and still give them dignity.

There is something weirdly refreshing about that.

But did anybody know this show existed?

Here’s where I have a problem with the ratings argument.

I don’t think Stumble was promoted properly—or at least, not nearly enough.

And I’m not saying that because I conducted an extensive analysis of NBC’s marketing budget.

I’m saying it because I found the show by accident.

I didn’t see a trailer that convinced me to watch it. I wasn’t counting down to the premiere.

I was watching something else on Peacock, autoplay kicked in, and suddenly Stumble was playing.

That was my introduction to the show.

Autoplay was the marketing department.

And immediately after I started watching it, I loved it.

So naturally, I started doing what you do when you discover a show you think everyone should be watching: I asked everybody I knew if they’d seen it.

Actually, I started with an easier question:

“Have you even heard of Stumble?”

Nobody had.

Not “Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to watch that.”

Not “I saw the commercials.”

Not even “Is that the cheerleading show?”

Nothing.

That bothers me when I hear that Stumble didn’t have enough viewers.

Because there’s a difference between:

People knew about your show and decided not to watch it.

And:

People might have watched your show, but never knew it existed.

I can’t prove which category Stumble falls into nationally.

I can only tell you what happened to me and almost everyone I asked.

That’s why the cancellation feels especially frustrating.

You can’t hide a show behind the couch and then get mad when nobody finds it.

And somehow autoplay did a better job selling me on Stumble than the actual promotion ever did.

So yes, show me the ratings.

I’ll accept the spreadsheet.

But I’m also going to ask:

How many people were ever given a real reason to open it?

Imagine if we canceled The Office after Season 1

This is the bigger problem.

Sometimes television comedies need time to stumble.

And yes, I recognize what I just did there.

I regret nothing.

But imagine if NBC had canceled The Office after Season 1.

Seriously.

Six episodes.

And I remember watching those six episodes when they were actually airing.

This wasn’t The Office we know now—the show everyone has seen, quoted, rewatched 20 times.

Back then, nobody I knew had even heard of it.

I remember telling people about this new show I was watching called The Office.

Even into Seasons 2 and 3, I was still telling people:

“You need to watch this show.”

I was trying to recruit Office fans before being an Office fan became something you could put in a dating profile.

And that’s what I keep thinking about with Stumble.

Imagine somebody at NBC looking at those first six episodes of The Office and saying:

“Well, people aren’t watching. We gave it a shot. Shut down Dunder Mifflin.”

That’s it.

No “Dinner Party.”

No Prison Mike.

No Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy.

No Jim and Pam becoming Jim and Pam.

Dwight Schrute would just be that strange beet-farm guy from a little show I once tried to convince my friends to watch.

The Office needed time to become The Office.

It needed time for people to find it.

And that’s the part I think we sometimes forget when we look backward at a massive hit. Eventually, a show becomes so culturally enormous that it feels like everybody must have been watching from the beginning.

They weren’t.

At least nobody around me was.

I’m not saying Stumble was guaranteed to become the next Office.

Nobody knows that.

Maybe Season 2 would have exploded.

Maybe it would have stayed small.

Maybe five years from now I’d still be writing this article for the same 14 people.

But we’ll never know what Stumble could have become because it wasn’t given the time to become anything beyond its first season.

And considering I spent the early years of The Office trying to convince people to watch a show they had barely heard of…

I’ve seen this part before.

Sometimes people just need time to find the good stuff.

And then NBC basically agreed with me

This is where things get interesting.

After the cancellation, NBCUniversal President of Program Planning Strategy Jeff Bader talked about Stumble and said he loved the show. He also acknowledged that putting a single-camera mockumentary after the multi-camera Happy’s Place created a tonal mismatch.

He said he felt terrible about the cancellation.

NBCUniversal scripted-content president Lisa Katz went even further, saying NBC loved the show creatively, was proud of it, and thought it had tremendous humor and heart.

Excuse me?

Do you understand how dangerous this information is to an irrational fan?

You cannot tell me you loved the show too.

I was prepared to accept defeat.

Now you’re giving me hope.

If I say:

“I love Stumble. I wish it hadn’t been canceled.”

And NBC says:

“We love Stumble. We’re disappointed it’s not continuing.”

Then I have a modest proposal.

UN-CANCEL STUMBLE.

I have checked extensively and can find no constitutional amendment prohibiting this.

And yes, NBC has legitimate business reasons. The network has limited entertainment slots, increasingly crowded by sports and other programming.

I understand all of that.

But emotionally?

I have chosen not to.

Streaming was invented for exactly this kind of thing

We spent the last decade building dozens of streaming services.

I have subscriptions whose existence I remember only when my credit card sends me a notification.

Surely one of these places has room for a charming 22-minute comedy.

Just give the show another season.

Eight episodes.

Ten episodes.

A streaming movie.

I just want to spend more time with these characters.

I have now watched Season 1 five times

This is probably the point where I should disclose that I am not approaching this situation like a normal person.

I have watched Season 1 of Stumble five times already.

Five.

And every time I finish the finale, I remember all over again:

That’s it.

There isn’t a Season 2 waiting for me.

Part of the reason I keep restarting it is simple:

I just want to stay in this universe a little longer.

I like these characters.

I like spending time with them.

I like to watch it before bed to unwind.

And maybe that’s part of why this particular show stuck with me.

There is plenty of television built around people being miserable, angry or terrible to each other.

Stumble felt like a little light in a dark world.

It was silly. It was warm. It let people be weird, flawed and ridiculous without making you feel worse about humanity when the credits rolled.

Sometimes that’s exactly the kind of show I want.

Thirteen episodes wasn’t enough.

So when I get to the end and realize there isn’t any more Stumble…

I go back to Episode 1.

But there’s also another, significantly less rational reason I keep doing it.

Some tiny part of me is convinced NBC is looking at the Peacock streaming numbers.

And maybe—just maybe—if I watch the season one more time, somebody at NBC will be sitting in a meeting, look down at a report and say:

“Wait a minute. Stumble is getting some interesting streaming numbers.”

And then somebody else will lean forward.

“Should we talk about bringing it back?”

You’re welcome, everyone.

That was me.

I know that’s not how any of this works.

One guy repeatedly watching the same 13 episodes is probably not going to trigger an emergency meeting at NBCUniversal.

But have we tried six times?

Because I can do six.

So this is Day 1

I’m going to keep recommending Stumble.

And if Stumble never comes back?

Fine.

I’m glad we got the 13 episodes.

I’m glad somebody made something unapologetically silly and warm.

I’m glad television still occasionally gives us characters who feel like people we’d actually enjoy hanging around with.

But I also know myself.

Eventually I’m going to finish Episode 13 again.

The credits will roll.

I’ll remember that there isn’t a Season 2.

I’ll be disappointed.

And then I’ll probably restart Episode 1.

Maybe this time it’ll be enough.

Day 1.

Your move, NBC.