Justice: FOX Throws Out Court Drama

Following on the heels of last week’s cancellations of the Happy Hour sitcom and The Rich List game show, FOX has announced that another of its new shows is leaving the air.

Justice debuted on Wednesday, August 30th to high expectations. The network had been showing fast-paced promos of the Victor Garber series all summer long but it still failed to attract big numbers. The highly anticipated premiere was watched by only 8.6 million viewers.

Justice followed a diverse group of lawyers as they worked at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm. Each episode started at the beginning of a trial and followed it through until the verdict. Then viewers were shown, via flashbacks, what actually happened at the time of the crime.

Like many FOX series, Justice took a break during the World Series (after five episodes). When it returned, FOX began airing it on Monday nights, opposite NBC’s popular Heroes and replacing Vanished (which was moved to Friday nights). Three episodes have aired on Monday nights. The most recent episode drew only 4.2 million households, about half of lead-in Prison Break’s audience.

With that in mind, its no surprise that FOX has announced that the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced courtroom drama has been pulled from the schedule effective immediately. The network isn’t calling it a cancellation right now. The FOX website lists that the show will return on December 11th, but the word is that it will not return for very long or at all.

Eight episodes of Justice have aired thus far and production is expected continue on the rest of the 13 episodes of FOX’s order. There is no word as yet if the series or any individual episodes will be released on DVD or online via FOX’s website.

11/17/06 UPDATE: FOX has officially cancelled Vanished and Justice will instead return on Friday, December 1st. No new word on how long it will continue to air.