Looks like FOX has pulled Drive onto the shoulder.After announcing that it would take the rather unusual tack of intentionally breaking up Drive's 13-episode run into two chunks (thus limiting any momentum the series would have built up), FOX has now announced that it is in fact benching the series for the entirety of May sweeps.
Four hours of the freshman series, about an illegal underground cross-country race, have already aired. FOX will fill Drive's Mondays at 8 pm timeslot with (you guessed it!) repeats of House.
While there's been no official word of the c-word (that would be cancellation, people!), it's not a good sign for a series that's already had its share of odd scheduling and plummeting ratings.
Oh well. It's not as if I didn't already make the turn for the exit ramp last week.
Comments
On another note -- is this true?:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-wk-baldwinwebapr25,1,4457998.story?coll=la-entnews-tv
Baldwin wants out of "30 Rock"?! Could HE have leaked...no. I don't want to believe that.
a) its season was split in half, 7 episodes now, the last 6 later.
b) the 13 episode order does NOT bring the cast to the end of the race. Which due to the low ratings of the premiere episode, did not give me warm feelings about a renewal. Which to me meant... why give a series a chance that has low ratings when its original episode order doesn't guarantee a resolution of the storyline?
c) im supposed to have a C for grammatical reasons, so I might as well use this as an opportunity to raise the discussion about Tim Minear's track record with FOX. He was looking at two cancelled FOX series in two years... This looks like its 3 for 3!
I told you this would come back to haunt us all.
As for FOX I am just waiting for the "special re-broadcat of last weeks performance show with exclusive never before seen footage" to take up space on the FOX schedule.
Second here's the big questions, Jace maybe you or someone else can answer this for me.
Why would a network air reruns rather than new episodes of a show? Certainly the ratings of a rerun can't be that much better, right?
Also why would a network not air episodes of a show it's already purchased? every season shows get canceled and the network just doesn't air X amount of episodes it has already paid for, why don't they at least burn them off at some point, it just seems like a waste of money.
Again, are we REALLY that surprised? Reunion? Kitchen Confidential? ...