James Van Der Beek has admitted that he was "surprised" to see his show Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 getting axed by ABC.
The US network dropped the sitcom - which had Van Der Beek playing a self-obsessed version of himself - though the unaired episodes are available to watch via Hulu (in the US) and iTunes.
"I was surprised that they actually just pulled the remaining episodes and didn't even air them at all," the former Dawson's Creek star told Vulture. "I felt like we never really got a chance to gain any traction.
"But you know, the whole network-scheduling game is such a strange one. And I mean, God bless ABC. They tried. They had the balls to pick it up. I really respect them for even giving it a shot."
The 36-year-old actor - who will next be seen in CBS comedy Friends with Better Lives - also claimed that Apartment 23 allowed him to shed his clean-cut image from teen drama Dawson's Creek.
"It's tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that Dawson's Creek was," he said. "It ran for so long. That's a lot of hours playing one character in front of people.
"I feel like walking down the street, I do get called 'Dawson' a lot less these days. So maybe that's a measure of what the show did. Now when people mock me on the street, they use my real name!"
