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Right off the bat, Mission Hill faced an uphill battle.  First, its premiere scored a mere 2.0 rating (from Nielsen: A rating is a percent of the universe that is being measured, most commonly discussed as a percent of all television households).  Then, the show was not aired until the broadcast of the episode "Kevin's Problem" on October 8, 1999 at 8 pm, eighteen days after the premiere, which meant many people may have forgotten about the new program by that time.  That night, the show pulled an share of 1.1, which was down from the show that had previous occupied the same timeslot the week before, The Jamie Foxx Show.

Also working against the program was a shift in the WB's target audience.  In 1998, just after Mission Hill had been picked up, the WB had their breakthrough hit with the teen drama Dawson's Creek.  That show's core audience was teenage girls, and the network decided to concentrate its efforts on this appealing to more viewers of this specific demographic.  As a result, the show did not receive a huge marketing push from the WB, most people may not have even been aware of the program's existence.

"There's a lot of luck involved in having a successful TV show. To be successful you have to appeal to millions of people of diverse backgrounds, it may have been on the wrong network," remembers Bill Oakley. 

After its airing on October 18, the show was pulled from the WB.  The reason for this was supposedly Ancier's successor at the WB Susanne Daniels, and the show's production company Castle Rock, decided it was too much to ask Mission Hill to kick off a lineup that included The Jamie Foxx Show, The Steve Harvey Show and For Your Love on Fridays.  So it was decided the show would return at a later date in the spring of 2000.  Despite that promise, the show did not air again until June 25, 2000.  Incidentally, it was now being kicked off by the lineup of The Jamie Foxx Show, The Steve Harvey Show and For Your Love.  

Mission Hill was back to a weekly schedule for four weeks, where the episodes "Andy & Kevin Make A Friend", "Kevin vs. The SAT", "Andy Gets A Promotion", and "Unemployment, Part 1" were shown.  But immediately after that, the show was once again pulled and Mission Hill was never seen on the WB again, with seven complete episodes still unaired and five incomplete episodes in limbo.

At this point, Mission Hill seemed dead in the water.