Saturday, May 14, 2011

CANCELLATION ALERT: Chase, Perfect Couples, America's Next Great Restaurant, School Pride

In addition to the cancellations of Outsourced, The Event, and Law & Order: LA, NBC axed more of its freshman series but these have been known for a long time and some have been off the air for a long time. Still, here is a rundown.

The action drama Chase was officially given the ax. After a soft debut on Monday nights at 10pm, Chase limped through the fall and made a move to Wednesdays at 9pm in January. However, it lasted all of two episodes before being yanked. It is now burning off its final episodes on Saturday night. It's a shame though because this actually turned into a really fun show and would have been a great fit on CBS. Not counting the Saturday burnoffs, it averaged 5.3 million viewers and a 1.5 in the demo through 13 episodes.

Also officially cancelled was midseason comedy Perfect Couples. The show premiered as part of NBC's new three hour comedy block but it was basically dead from the start. The show got to such microscopic levels in its Thursday 8:30pm slot that NBC yanked it earlier than expected. The only problem was that its replacement - The Paul Reiser Show - got even lower numbers. In 10 episodes, it averaged a paltry 3.0 million viewers and a 1.4 in the demo.

Another cancellation was the just-concluded America's Next Great Restaurant. The reality show got lost in the shuffle on Sunday nights and never got off the ground. It was originally targeted for Wednesday nights but was moved to Sunday where its premiere got overshadowed by ABC's Secret Millionaire premiere. Restaurant had 9 episodes and averaged 4.0 million viewers and a 1.4 in the demo.

Finally, the long forgotten School Pride was given the ax. The inspirational reality show had a DOA premiere with 2.9 million viewers and a 0.9 demo and dropped from there. It only aired seven episodes on Friday nights last fall and then disappeared so it's somewhat surprising NBC even decided to include it amongst the official announcements since everyone knew it was dead. In 7 episodes, it averaged 2.4 million viewers and a 0.7 in the demo.

With these announcements, the only freshmen that don't have an official word are The Cape (which is considered cancelled, especially considering NBC aired its final episode online) and The Voice (which is sure to get a second season). The Voice will join Harry's Law as the only new shows at NBC to return for the 2011-2012 season. Yikes! Hopefully next year will be better for NBC's crop of freshmen.

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