Last night was the premiere of NBC’s much-hyped new series, Kings. Though the series has an impressive cast and big production values, few viewers tuned in to watch. Based on the initial ratings, will interested viewers get a chance to see the whole season?
Kings is a modern retelling of the classic David and Goliath story. It’s set in a modern world that closely resembles our own, except for the fact that what looks like the United States is ruled by a king. Kings is billed as an epic story of greed and power, war and romance, forbidden loves and secret alliances — and a young hero who rises to power in a modern-day kingdom.
It stars Ian McShane, Christopher Egan, Susanna Thompson, Michael Patrick Crane, Allison Miller, Sebastian Stan, Eamonn Walker, Dylan Baker, Wes Studi, Joel Garland, Jason Antoon, Sarita Choudhury, and Macaulay Culkin.
The two-hour premiere got off to a rocky start last night, to put it mildly. The first half hour attracted a poor 6.5 million viewers and a 1.6/5 rating/share in the 18-49 demographic. By the time the last half hour had aired, only 5.5 million were still watching with a 1.7/4.
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Those numbers placed the debut firmly in fourth place among the big networks. It performed significantly worse than Celebrity Apprentice had the week before and proved to be the network’s second worst premiere of the season, behind last week’s Chopping Block.
NBC has committed to 11 more hours of the series which are set to begin airing next Sunday night. With a complicated premise and a little-watched premiere, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which even fewer people will tune in next week. With so few viewers, NBC will have little choice but to make a change in their schedule. What’s likely to happen?
In the past, NBC probably would have simply pulled the show from the schedule and opted to leave a bunch of unaired installments sitting on the shelf. In these tough economic times however, that’s not a very viable option. As was the case with Crusoe, they’ll likely move the remaining episodes to Saturday nights to burn them off.
No matter what they decide to do with the existing episodes, unless viewership radically improves, it’s impossible to imagine that the series would be renewed for a second season. Long live the king? It appears, not so much.
Image courtesy NBC.
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An amazing show, with a great story. Not many TV shows have that much plot to write about yet they stay on for 5+ seasons. Even though marketing may have been horrible and never advertised to religious audiences, I believe that could be changed. This is one of very few shows I would make sure I was available to watch when on TV, or watch again on nbc.com.
I am disappointed how bad the marketing was and nbc’s decision to cancel it, even worse by putting it in a sunday or saturday slot, which is sure to be an end to it.
They need to get rid of the reality garbage and every other show about certain jobs here in America, such as doctors, police, lawyers, and nurses. I would bet anything that you’d never see a show about a manufacturer worker and his/her life. It’s all the same with a different setting, the same plot, and different characters (sometimes the same).
This is such a great show, and to cancel it with such an amazing end to the season is a shame. Please bring it back. The traction on twitter right now is crazy, and have you seen the number of petitions? Bring it back!!
Here are two:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savekings/
http://act.ly/9v
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