Imaginary Mary

Imaginary Mary is an American live-action/animated fantasy sitcom television series created by Adam F. Goldberg, David Guarascio and Patrick Osborne that aired on ABC from March 29 to May 30, 2017. The series is executive produced by the creators and was greenlighted to series order on May 12, 2016. A first-look-trailer was released on the same day. ABC reduced the number of episodes from thirteen to nine on September 28, 2016.

On May 11, 2017, the series was cancelled after one season.

Plot
The series follows Alice when an imaginary puppet being from her childhood, named Mary, reappears when she is now a single public relations executive falling in love with a single father of three children. Mary hopes to guide (or misguide) her.

Cast

 * Jenna Elfman as Alice
 * Stephen Schneider as Ben Cooper, Alice’s love interest
 * Nicholas Coombe as Andy Cooper, Ben's son
 * Matreya Scarrwener as Dora Cooper, Ben's daughter
 * Erica Tremblay as Bunny Cooper, Ben's daughter
 * Rachel Dratch as the voice of Mary

Production
The series was first announced in 2015 as Imaginary Friend which was then changed to Imaginary Gary. In the original pilot, the main characters were both men and the love interest was a single mom. When the series went into development, the genders of the characters were flipped. Elfman filmed her scenes first with a puppet in order for the animators to have a reference point, and then in a later take without anything to show what she was talking to. Dratch did her voice work separately in New York with the scenes already filmed. She said at the TCA press tour, "I have the freedom to go crazy."

In September 2016, it was reported that the show's crew would make changes with the animation for the character, Mary, after it received a poor reception from ABC. ABC then reduced the original thirteen-episode order for the first season to nine episodes in order to allow the show's crew to make changes with the animation.

Critical response
The series received a generally negative response from critics. On review aggregator site Metacritic, Imaginary Mary has a score of 39 out of 100 based on 13 critics indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On Rotten Tomatoes, the show has a 27% approval rating, based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's critical consensus: "Imaginary Mary appealing cast is canceled out by uninspired material and a ridiculous premise whose deficiencies are compounded by an unfunny, ill-advised CGI creature."