Feature Story
After a total of nine seasons, “Last Man Standing” is bringing down the velvet curtain. But they’re not going anywhere without a big, one-hour send-off for our dear Baxters, their crew and fans of the show. The series is set to air its finale of all finales on Thursday, May 20, on Fox.
Debuting a decade ago, “Last Man Standing” became a household name when it ran for six seasons on ABC, followed by another three on Fox. Even with the occasional glitch in production — only second most notably being the pandemicrelated shutdown — the show never really left the air over the years, tickling funny bones with brilliant quips.
Leading the cast is Tim Allen (“Toy Story 4,” 2019), who plays Mike Baxter, a husband and father who tries his best to assert his machismo in a home ruled by four females: his wife and her three daughters. Through time, Mike realizes there is so much more that he has become, such as a patient and guiding father to his now-adult daughters, the owner/marketing director of the sporting goods store chain, Outdoor Man, and a grandfather.
The show also features Nancy Travis (“The Kominsky Method”) as Vanessa, Mike’s geologist-turned-tutoring-business-owner wife.
Daughter No. 1, the eldest, is Kristen, who was played by Alexandra Krosney (“Twenty-Three Pints,” 2016) in Season 1 and Amanda Fuller (“Orange Is the New Black”) from Season 2 onward. Molly Ephraim (“Perry Mason”) plays middle daughter Mandy; or, at least she did for the first six seasons before Molly McCook (“37:2,” 2019) took over. The youngest daughter is Eve (Kaitlyn Dever, “Dear Evan Hansen,” 2021), who appears in the show as a regular for the first six seasons before returning only as a recurring guest from Season 7 on.
The rest of the cast includes Christoph Sanders (“Big Kill,” 2018), Hector Elizondo (“Music,” 2021), Flynn Morrison (“Pretty Little Liars”), Jordan Masterson (“Bad Roomies,” 2014), Jonathan Adams (“Teen Titans Go!”), Krista Marie Yu (“Parenthood”), Jet Jurgensmeyer (“T.O.T.S.”) and real-life Jonas Brother Nick Jonas (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” 2017).
In the recent Season 9 episode “The Two Nieces of Eve,” Dever reprised her role once more as the Baxters’ youngest child. Having aired on April 9 and featured Dever’s character, Eve, home for a visit, she was clearly struggling to connect with the two girls. Meanwhile, Mandy’s husband, Kyle (Sanders), confided to Ed (Elizondo), Mike’s longtime business partner, about his preaching woes.
Based on the social circuit (which is full of speculations now that the series is wrapping up), it looks like Dever will be popping back in for the series finale, but fans can only wait for updates at this time.
After six seasons, ABC axed “Last Man Standing” on May 10, 2017, despite the show being its second most popular sitcom since 2016, based on Live+7 rankings. Both ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios said they scrapped the series mainly due to scheduling reasons, but there were speculations that another factor may have been at play.
According to reports, the show’s exit came without the usual licensing fee negotiations between ABC and its production partner, 20th Century Fox Television. The two had a contract stipulating that Fox shoulder the cost of production for the first six seasons, and ABC for the remaining seasons. Unfortunately, ABC didn’t want to uphold its part of the deal, leading to the show’s cancellation.
Fans hated the news and didn’t shy away from making noise on social media. They even went so far as to petition on Change.org for another network to adopt the show. When the number of signatures reached 380,000, ABC responded by explaining it just didn’t want to do comedy on Friday, which naturally meant eliminating even the toprated show. Within a year, signatures on the petition had increased by 58,000.