ABC Kills ‘The Nine’ and ‘The Knights of Prosperity’ … Again
Fans Left Out in the Cold … Again
That’s it—I officially despise ABC. The Futon Critic reported on Monday that the network has tweaked its Wednesday night line up once more, officially nixing the recently returned canceled series The Nine and The Knights of Prosperity from their burn-off time slots due to record low ratings. What did executives think? That fans would flock to watch the shows when it’s unlikely that most people even realized they had returned given the lack of consistent and widespread publicity for these types of burn-off situations? In their place, viewers will get reruns of the sitcom According to Jim, last year’s newsmagazine feature Primetime: The Outsiders, and the new five-episode reality series NASCAR in Primetime.
When The Knights of Prosperity returned to the tube last week, two episodes were broadcast at 8:30 pm EST and 9:30pm, the last immediately before a previously unaired episode of The Nine. The sitcom was then slated to burn off its remaining two unaired episodes on the subsequent two Wednesdays at 8:30pm.
Meanwhile, The Nine, which returned on August 1 and had only four unaired installments left, was supposed to complete its run over the next four Wednesdays at 10pm. Now, fans have no indication that the unseen episodes of either series will ever reach the light of a screen, either through a television or a computer via online streaming.
Even Fox and NBC, two broadcast networks that are customarily no kinder when it comes to axing good shows without warning or concern for hooked viewers, had the common sense to burn off all of the unaired episodes when they raised two other canceled Fall 2006 series from the dead—Standoff and Kidnapped, respectively. In the case of Fox, it scheduled the FBI negotiator series on “Who cares?” Fridays, and left it there for an entire seven weeks in June and July, until every episode left on the shelf had aired.
The Peacock Network—which had already released a much-recommended DVD set of the full and fully wrapped up 13-episode series on April 28— chose Mondays at midnight for Kidnapped‘s “Who cares?” time slot. Fans of the series who knew about the return then had the chance to see or record the final eight episodes in all their glory from June through August.
ABC should take note that its decision to twice cancel The Nine and The Knights of Prosperity, both shows worthy of more decent treatment, will win the network no supporters come fall when its new roster of series debut.
Related News: Catch ‘The Nine’ at Ten | The Knights of Prosperity: Declining Fortunes
The Knights of Prosperity photo courtesy of ABC
