‘Last Man Standing’ Renewed for Season 8 by Fox

After a breakout season on the network, Fox has officially renewed Last Man Standing for Season 8.

Fox made the announcement on Thursday, April 18 that the popular Tim Allen-starring comedy would be returning for an eighth season, its second on the network. The renewal comes just ahead of Friday’s landmark 150th episode, according to TVLine.

“Hard to believe Last Man Standing hits 150 episodes this week and it gets better with another upcoming season at FOX!” Allen said in a statement. “Great news for all of us who are creating these stories and working our pants off to make you all laugh. It’s another big high-five to the legions of loyal fans who have faithfully kept us front and center and huge on the radar. Thanks to our family at Fox who continue to make us feel so at home. Man, if we keep this up, they might have to call our show: Last Man Unable to Stand.”

Michael Thorn, Fox’s President of Entertainment, added that the series “roared out of the gate” on the network and that “much of that credit goes to the incredibly funny and talented Tim Allen” and the rest of the cast.

“We’d like to thank [executive producers] Kevin Abbott, Matt [Berry] and the entire crew, along with our partners at 20th Century Fox Television, for overseeing one of television’s most popular comedies,” Thorn added. “We’d also like to congratulate them all on reaching 150 episodes — a milestone that’s well-deserved.”

The series, which was picked up by the network following its cancellation at ABC just a year prior, premiered its seventh season in September and quickly proved to be a ratings powerhouse, despite the many changes it saw. The premiere episode alone raked in a 1.8 Nielsen rating in the key 18-49 demographic and scored 8 million total viewers, blowing the season six premiere on ABC — which opened to 6 million viewers and a 1.1 rating — out of the water.

The Tim Allen-led comedy series had gotten the ax at the alphabet network in 2017 following six seasons, a controversial decision that ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey claimed was “a challenging one” due to the series being a “steady performer in the ratings,” and a decision that took the cast and crew by surprise.

“I’ve had sudden deaths in my family and, for some strange reason, it reminded me of that, where you had no warning. Everything was going quite well. It seemed like the network was very happy with us and we were doing our job [ratings-wise] on the night as required,” Allen said of the surprise cancellation. “I’ve been in the network business for quite a while, and we were very big team players, everybody on the set was. It seemed everything was fine. It was a late decision as far as I can remember. You usually know sometime in April or May, but it wasn’t until sometime in June that they really made it. It was just odd.”

While Fox’s revival picked up eight months after its final episode on ABC, season seven saw a number of changes, most notably the recastings of Mandy and Boyd Baxter. Although Jet Jurgensmeyer’s casting as Boyd, taking over the role from Flynn Morrison, went over smoothly with fans, Molly McCook’s recasting as Molly Ephraim’s Mandy drew much more criticism.

Last Man Standing also stars Nancy Travis as Vanessa Baxter, Amanda Fuller as Mike’s eldest daughter Kristin, as well as Hector Elizondo, Jonathan Adams, Christoph Sanders, Kaitlyn Dever and Jordan Masters.

Last Man Standing will return for its eight season sometime in 2019.