‘The Nine’ Resumes on ABC in August
Another Series That Prematurely Bit the Dust Resurfaces
Watching TV is really getting to be a chore now that every broadcast network seems to live by the “cancel quickly, explain later” approach to less-than-phenomenal ratings. Just last fall alone, I saw three shows that I enjoyed to varying degrees go “Puff!” into thin air almost immediately after their premieres. Those promising and originally much-hyped series included ABC’s The Nine, CBS’ Smith, and NBC’s Kidnapped. There’s little hope that Smith fans will ever see the four of seven produced episodes that never aired; but, both NBC and ABC are proving a teensy bit kinder to viewers who followed the other two cancelled shows. With a roster of thirteen episodes each in the can, Kidnapped and The Nine made it past the halfway mark since hour-long dramas typically have about twenty-two installments per season.
At the end of June, NBC quietly began broadcasting the remaining eight unaired episodes of Kidnapped, officially cancelled last October 31, at 12am EST on Monday mornings. ABC has recently decided to follow suit with its intricate bank-robbery drama The Nine, which will resume broadcasting its final six episodes in its former regular Wednesday-night/10pm EST time slot on August 1.
If anyone is hoping for an indication that either show might return in some format for a second season, à la CBS’ Jericho, don’t waste any time holding your breath. Most of the talented actors who starred in both series have long since moved on to greener pastures elsewhere, such as Kidnapped‘s Jeremy Sisto, who will join the original Law & Order as the newest detective (how psyched I am for that), and The Nine‘s Tim Daly, the resident hunk in ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice.
As I still haven’t gotten fully accustomed to the annoying limitations of online streaming (I prefer to just punch in the time on my remote to instantly arrive at a certain spot in a program, not to mention that why sites are still refusing to provide captions for multitasking power TV watchers and the deaf and hard of hearing, among others users, is beyond me—someone really needs to start suing), I’m presently watching the last unaired episodes of Kidnapped through the DVD set of the complete series that was released on April 24.
Since there doesn’t seem to be a similar set in the works for The Nine anytime soon, if ever, and ABC doesn’t have the series available online either, I highly recommend catching the final installments when they restart next month. Keep in mind, however, that fans are bound to be left unsatisfied when the run is over because the assorted plotlines are not resolved in the thirteen episodes that were produced. For that to happen, the impatient Alphabet Network would have had to do the unthinkable—actually allow an intelligent and provocative series to find its audience gradually over the course of a full season.
Related News: ‘Law and Order’ Casting News: Milena Govich Out, Jeremy Sisto In
The Nine photo courtesy of ABC
