The Mick picked up for 4 additional episodes: Fox at the TCA part 2

l-r, Thomas Barbusca, Sofia Black D'Elia,
Jack Stanton and Kaitlin Olson in The Mick

Another announcement from Fox this morning:  new comedy The Mick, starring It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Katlin Olson, has been picked up for an additional 4 episodes, bringing this season's total to 17.

Fox touts the show as the "#1 New Comedy of the Season," which is a dubious claim to make about a show that has aired only 3 times, especially when some new shows such as ABC's American Housewife and Speechless have been pumping out popular installments since early fall.  Still, Fox brags that The Mick's special Jan. 1 "preview" of its pilot eipsode scored the season's highest-rated new comedy debut in Adults 18-49 in more than 15 months on any network.  Combining multiple platforms, The Mick's audience grew 35% to 11.6 million viewers, tying Lethal Weapon as Fox's highest-rated series premiere of this season (not too hard a feat, compared to underperformers like Pitch and The Exorcist, however.)  And in its regular time period premiere on Jan. 3, The Mick was Fox's highest-rated Tuesday entertainment telecast of the season.

The next all-new episode of The Mick will also air in a special time slot -- as Fox gives a special boost to this deserving comedy by running it on Sunday, January 15, following the sure-to-be-popular, first-ever hour-long episode of The Simpsons.

The show's creators Dave and John Chernin, director Randall Einhorn, and stars Kaitlin Olson, Carla Jimenez, Scott MacArthur, Sofia Black-D'Elia and Thomas Barbusca appeared today on a TCA panel in Pasadena, where we learned that the show has two episodes yet to film of its original 13-episode order, plus now four additional shows -- extra weeks that will stretch The Mick's season closer to those magic mid-May days when the network will make its decisions about pickups for the fall.