Samantha Who? Information

Samantha Who? is an American television sitcom that originally aired on ABC from October 15, 2007 to July 23, 2009. The series was created by Cecelia Ahern and Don Todd, who also served as producers. Although highly rated during its first season, the sitcom lost momentum and viewers throughout its second season, and ABC canceled the show in May 2009.

The series was produced by Brillstein-Grey Entertainment and Touchstone Television partnered with ABC Studios and executive produced by Christina Applegate, Donald Todd, Peter Traugott, Bob Kushell, Alex Reid and Marco Pennette.

Plot

The show centered around Samantha Newly (Christina Applegate), a 30-year-old vice president of a real estate firm who develops retrograde amnesia after a hit and run accident. After awakening, she progressively realizes to her dismay that she had been selfish and unlikable before her accident, and therefore sets out to make amends and become a better daughter to her somewhat dysfunctional parents, Howard (Kevin Dunn) and Regina (Jean Smart), a better friend to self-centered Andrea (Jennifer Esposito), and needy but well-meaning Dena (Melissa McCarthy), and a better on-again, off-again girlfriend to her roommate and ex-boyfriend, Todd (Barry Watson). Wryly observing her transformation from "Old Sam" to "New Sam" is Samantha's bemused doorman, Frank (Tim Russ).

Production history

Produced by ABC Studios and Brillstein-Grey Television, the series was officially greenlit and given a thirteen-episode order on May 11, 2007.

The show was originally named Sam I Am until ABC renamed it Samantha Be Good due to conflicts with the estate of Dr. Seuss. TV Guide later reported that ABC had changed the title of the series once more to Samantha Who?. Early television promotions for the series, playing off of the concept of its lead character's amnesia, appeared without stating any specific title. The lack of stated title (with a question mark shown instead) was attributed in promotions to Applegate's character not remembering the name of the series.

The series premiered on October 15, 2007 at 9:30PM Eastern/8:30PM Central and moved to 9:00PM Eastern/8:00PM Central on Mondays on November 26, 2007.

On October 25, 2007, ABC ordered 6 additional scripts for Samantha Who?.

On October 30, 2007, ABC ordered a full season of 22 episodes for Samantha Who?. However, due to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, only 15 episodes were produced for season one.

On February 11, 2008, ABC picked up Samantha Who? for the 2008-09 television season.

On October 31, 2008, ABC ordered 7 more episodes of Samantha Who? bringing the total number of episodes for the show's second season to 20. The announcement came in advance of mandated budget cuts at ABC Studios, which produces the series.

The series, which was filmed in the single-camera format, went on hiatus during the 2008-2009 television season and returned in a new timeslot on Thursday, March 26, 2009, following In the Motherhood before being pulled.

On May 18, 2009, ABC announced that they would not be renewing Samantha Who? for a third season. ABC burned off the final episodes on Thursday nights at 8:00PM Eastern/7:00PM Central from June 25, 2009 until the finale on July 23, 2009 (with additional episodes airing Thursday, July 2 and Thursday, July 9 at 8:30PM Eastern/7:30PM Central).

The TV Guide Network has rebroadcast the series since September 2011.

Cast

• Christina Applegate - Samantha "Sam" Newly
• Jennifer Esposito - Andrea Belladonna
• Kevin Dunn - Howard Newly
• Melissa McCarthy - Dena
• Tim Russ - Frank
• Barry Watson - Todd Deepler
• Jean Smart - Regina Newly

Episodes

U.S. television ratings

Standard ratings

In the following summary, "rating" is the percentage of all households with televisions that tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions in use at that time that are tuned in. "18-49" is the percentage of all adults aged 18"49 tuned into the show. "Viewers" are the amount of viewers, in millions, watching at the time. "Rank" how well the show did compared to other TV shows aired that week.

Unless otherwise cited, the overnight rating, share, 18-49 and viewing information come from Your Entertainment Now. The weekly ranks come from ABC Medianet.

^? This episode started at 9:45PM, so the ratings are estimated and are the average of the 9:30 half hour and the 10:00 half hour.

• For the first six episodes of Samantha Who?, the show held the title of highest rated sitcom., a title which was held consistently by Two and a Half Men for the previous two television seasons.
• Samantha Who? was, for its first seven episodes, the highest rated sitcom which debuted during the 2007-2008 television season.

Without a strong lead-in (provided by Dancing with the Stars in its first season) and paired with another failing ABC comedy In the Motherhood, Samantha Who?'s ratings dropped to lows of around 4 million in its second season.

Seasonal ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Samantha Who? on ABC:

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, or occasionally early June, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Episodes	Timeslot (EST)	Premiere	Finale	TV season	Rank	Viewers (in millions)	18-49 Rating/Share (rank)
1	15	Monday 9:30 P.M. (October 15, 2007 - November 19, 2007) Monday 9:00 P.M. (November 26, 2007 - December 10, 2007) Monday 9:30 P.M. (April 7, 2008 - May 12, 2008)				#26	11.82	TBA
2	20	Monday 9:30 P.M. (October 13, 2008 - December 1, 2008) Thursday 8:30 P.M.(March 26, 2009 - July 23, 2009) Thursday 8:00 P.M. (June 25, 2009-July 23, 2009)				#54	8.9	TBA

Ratings competition

Samantha Who? first aired against fellow freshmen show K-Ville on FOX. It also aired against Rules of Engagement on CBS, Heroes on NBC and The Game on The CW"?each in their second season. This was for the first six episodes Samantha Who? aired at 9:30pm.

On November 26, 2007, Samantha Who? shifted to the 9pm timeslot. Its competition shifted from The Game to Girlfriends on The CW and from Rules of Engagement to Two and a Half Men on CBS. Sophomore sitcom Notes from the Underbelly assumed the 9:30pm position.

DVD releases

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1. They also released season 1 on DVD in Region 2 & Region 4 (Australia). Both seasons contain several special features including bloopers and deleted scenes. The Region 1 releases have been discontinued and are out of print.

On February 9, 2012, it was announced that Lionsgate Home Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series and plan on re-releasing it. Seasons 1 and 2 will be re-released on May 1, 2012.

DVD name	Ep #	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
The Complete First Season	15	September 23, 2008	May 3, 2010	February 12, 2009
The Complete Second and Final Season	20	August 25, 2009	N/A	N/A

Awards

International distribution

Country	Network	Date premiered
India	Zee Cafe	March 2013
United Kingdom	E4 Comedy Central
Netherlands	NET 5
Latin America	Sony Entertainment Television
Mexico	Azteca 7
Poland	Fox Life	October 13, 2008
France	Virgin 17	October 19, 2008
Malaysia	ntv7	November 14, 2008
Italy	Fox Life	February 20, 2008
Ireland	TG4
Brazil	Sony Entertainment Television	November 5, 2007
Middle East	Fox Series	June 5, 2010
New Zealand	TV 2	June 5, 2010
Finland	Nelonen
Australia	7Two Seven Network	November 16, 2009
Portugal	RTP2 and MOV
Turkey	ComedyMax
Spain	TNT
Philippines	Star World
Hong Kong Macau	TVB Pearl
Sweden	TV4 Sweden	January 18, 2009
Japan	AXN	January 11, 2009