Life: Damian Lewis Series Cancelled, No Season Three

LifeWhile today’s NBC infront presentation brought good news for fans of struggling shows like Heroes and Parks and Recreation. Those who enjoy Life weren’t so lucky.

Life revolves around detective Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis), a man who served a dozen years for murders that he didn’t commit. He lost all that was dear to him but survives thanks to his studies of Zen philosophy. He eventually rejoins the LAPD but is a very different man. Others in the cast include Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Brent Sexton, Donal Logue, Brooke Langton, Robin Weigert, Jennifer Siebel, Victor Rivers, and Jessy Schram.

The NBC drama debuted in September 2007 to 10.15 million viewers and a 4.1/11 rating/share of the 18-49 demographic. Later episodes sank to a low of 5.72 million and a 2/6. If not for the writers strike, NBC would have cancelled Life after one year. The execs instead decided to give it another try and renewed the series for a second season.

Unfortunately, the next round of episodes didn’t perform any better than the first. NBC needs fewer shows next season because of their Jay Leno experiment but, even if they didn’t, Life wouldn’t be coming back with such poor ratings.

NBC’s co-chair, Ben Silverman, made it official today and confirmed that Life won’t be coming back next season. Thankfully, the last episode of the series gave viewers some closure and answers to ongoing questions. These days, that’s a luxury that few other shows are given.


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{ 186 comments… read them below or add one }

1 chris October 31, 2009 at 3:54 pm

It’s par for course…..these execs. are really out of touch with what people really want,and they never will. Life was a great show,maybe another network will pick it up and it wiil have a long run,like other former nbc shows!

2 Bill November 6, 2009 at 12:05 pm

I agree the head hunters at the top have no ideal what a good interesting show is, one
that the viewer cant wait to find out what happen.
life was such a show it had great cast, good writing and it made you want more.
Yes CHRIS the execs. on the the money mountain feel if they dont hit a home run
first time or secound time up they just call the game in this case for fog because its
obivous they cant see anything.

3 Michael November 6, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Bring life back to life!!!!! One of the smartest shows on TV. The final episode “ONE”, I keep in my DVR and watched four times…Great stuff!!

4 The German November 18, 2009 at 4:27 am

I hope, that “life” will be continued. Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi were such a funny couple! We loved the show in germany…

5 Alicia November 19, 2009 at 1:11 pm

This is such a disappointment. This show was my all time favorite. I DVR alot of shows, but none held a candle to ‘Life’. I thought it was getting late in the season for it to air. So I looked it up on the computer today and realized it had been canceled. I am now feeling very sad. They were like my friends every week, now I’ll never see them again. It makes me not even want to give any more new shows a chance. I’ll just stick to the Law and Orders, we all know they aren’t going anywhere.
P.S. They can do away with Jay Leno to give us more room. 5 nights a week during prime time is rediculous! That is enough room for 5 different weekly series!

6 The German November 20, 2009 at 3:21 am

The last episodes have not been shown in german tv yet, so i had to look the last episodes in english and unfortunately i didn’t understand everythink.
My question is: Can anybody tell me how it ends? How is the father of Dani Reese involved? Why was Dani Reese on the boat? What did she want there?

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