Though October Road debuted to strong ratings, ABC plans to cut the freshman drama’s season short and only air two-thirds of the episodes. Why?
The new October Road drama on ABC (no relation to the 2002 James Taylor album) tells the story of a young and famous NYC writer named Nick Garrett (played by Bryan Greenberg). Nick authored an extremely popular book which was essentially a “tell all” novel based on his home of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts. He subsequently gets a bad case of writer’s block and decides its time to return to his hometown after ten years away. As you might guess, his reception isn’t exactly a warm one. In addition to Greenberg, the series features Laura Prepon (That ’70’s Show), Tom Berenger, Warren Christie, Brad William Henke, Evan Jones, Jay Paulson, Slade Pearce, Geoff Stults (7th Heaven) and Odette Yustman.
Following a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, October Road debuted on March 15, 2007 to great numbers. Despite mixed reviews, Road attracted 13.93 million viewers and came in at #9 for the week. The second episode lost 16% of its previous audience and about a half of lead-in Grey’s Anatomy’s viewers. Still, Road performed much better than Six Degrees or Men in Trees had in the same timeslot. You would think that ABC would be anxious to air the rest of the season’s episodes. You would be incorrect.
Like more and more new shows, October Road’s initial season is a short one, consisting of only six episodes. Rather than run all six of them to keep viewers hooked, ABC plans to air only four of them this season. If the show gets picked up for another year, the remaining two episodes will be broadcast at that time. ABC did the same thing to Grey’s Anatomy its first year.
You can view this stockpiling as either pretty good assurance that Road will return for season two or, that ABC execs don’t have faith in the series. The final decision will have a lot to do with how well episodes three and four perform. If Road’s audience continues to erode, it probably won’t be back. We’ll likely know by mid-May what ABC decides to do. Stay tuned! 
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Ok, my 2 cents worth for all it will do to have ABC bring this show back. YES, bring it back. It was light and easy and good to see “middle America” with problems, too..we got to KNOW the characters, their foibles, problems, love, hate..it was emotional without being sappy, draining and cliche’ lines. Why is it people would rather watched staged shows where you know EXACTLY what will happen before it does (IE: reality shows) then a simple, sometimes close to home program? And, how does Super Nanny fix her charges problems in 1 week?? I find that VERY hard to believe!! Regardless, this is my take on the whole ABC situation and and other broadcasting stations that takes off good, clean, shows for trash shows..SO THERE ABC!! BRING BACK OCTOBER ROAD..it is within your means to do so..I really don’t give a poop about ratings..it only means $$ to the big wigs and they make enough..with stock shares et al..Give some comfort to YOUR AUDIENCE, otherwise we may stop watching TV altogether. Even movies are poopy lately..I would almost rather play computer games now than watch the poop on TV..BRING BACK OCTOBER ROAD AND KEEP IT REAL AS IT WAS!! Thanks
Yes, for crying out loud bring this show back – It was a show that you didnt have to worry about your kids being in the room or not. I enjoyed the craziness of each characters life syle and not to mention how can you leave us hanging like this. BRING IT BACK…….
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