For a show about past lives and reincarnation, FOX’s show has certainly had a very short lifespan. With poor ratings and reviews, the network has cancelled Past Life after three episodes.
Inspired by the book, Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose, Past Life revolves around past-life detectives who try to discover if a person’s problems and visions stem from traumatic events in a former life. The series stars Kelli Giddish, Nicholas Bishop, Ravi Patel, and Richard Schiff.
FOX had originally ordered 13 episodes of Past Life but, in mid-October, cut that to just seven installments. The official reason given was that the network had a plethora of mid-season programming but the move sure wasn’t a sign of confidence for the project.
The TV series got off to a poor start with a special showing on Tuesday, February 9th. Past Life averaged 8.32 million viewers and a 2.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Those numbers aren’t bad on their own but they do represent a loss of about 70% of the American Idol lead-in audience. What’s more, a significant number of people stopped watching before the Past Life episode had finished. An average of 9.6 million were watching the first half hour but only 7.14 million watched the second half.
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A couple days later, Past Life debuted in its regular Thursday night timeslot. Predictably, it was pummeled by the competition. It came in at fourth place in its timeslot with just 5.3 million viewers and a terrible 1.4 in the demo.
Last night’s episode was even worse. Per the overnight ratings, Past Life registered just 3.9 million viewers and a 1.1 in the 18-49 demographic. That’s particularly disappointing when you consider that most of the other networks were in repeats.
American Idol will be expanding to Thursday nights for the next three weeks and run at 8pm. Rather than give more time to a sinking ship, FOX execs have decided to pull Past Life and replace the drama with episodes of Kitchen Nightmares.
Nightmares will continue to air on Friday nights but those episodes will be repeats. On April 1st, original episodes of Bones and Fringe will take over on Thursdays. New episodes of Nightmares will then resume on Fridays.
The network says that the remaining four episodes of Past Life will surface at some point in the season but, given their overflow of successful programming, that doesn’t seem all that likely.
It would seem that the Past Life cancellation was decided either late last night or very early this morning. The “masked scheduler” tweeted, “Drove on to the lot and the Past Life poster was being torn down….hmmmmmm.”
What do you think? Was Past Life worth watching or did it deserve to be cancelled? Do you think FOX will really air the remaining four episodes?
Image courtesy FOX.
Me and my 12 yr old daughter really got into this we are both very sad to see that it has ended so early. Im surprised at the ratings maybe they should have advertised a little more!
My husband and I are very disappointed that the show has been canceled. This is a bad time of year to start a show with the olympics and american idol. I really wish they would put the show on even at a later time.
I really liked this show. Fringe ended so i had to find something else to watch and i really got into the show and really liked it! But now it got pulled.
Are you planning to replace it with another bubble-headed reality show? You need to give these things a little time for folks to catch on!
A REAL SHAME!
THIS SHOW HAD SOME GOOD STARTING FOUNDATIONS AND FOX ABORTED TOO EARLY.
I am concerned that Fox is dropping this series, I found it excellent thought provoking
time to spend in front of this idiot box that runs a mindless series of mass media garbage reality shows.
The acting is spectacular, the concept is novel, but you chose to drop it? Inconceivab
My husband and I recorded the Past Life episodes and watched them the next day. Just because they were not watched during their regular time-slot, doesn’t mean that they were not DVR worthy to watch later. We really had started to enjoy them and looked forward to having them on our list of shows not to miss by recording. 3 episodes didn’t even give the program a chance. You get us interested and then “poof” GONE! It’s bad enough the way the series run now…they show you maybe 4 or 5 new episodes, then replace with a different one for… Read more »
Glad Past Life was put to death. Waiting for the best show on TV, Fringe, to make it’s return April 1st, on FOX!
I’m not the least bit surprised Past Life was canceled. It was dull, heavy-handed and poorly acted.
And to the comments here that posit it was canned because its theme was intellectually challenging, I just have to laugh! If you consider reincarnation to be cutting edge and “in-your-face”, you need to get out of Momma’s basement more often. This show’s plot lines were about as challenging as a game of Tic Tac Toe with a five-year-old. Do not equate your belief in the show’s premise as a sign of intellectual superiority over the rest of America.
I don’t think the show past life should’ve ended. I thought it was a great show.. Too bad. I hope they at least play the remaining 4 episodes that were never played. I really strongly belive that was a great show and didn’t deserve to be taken off. They should of gave it more time to become more popular. They only aired 3 episodes.. I just really hope they give it another chance.
When you put a new show, even as good as Past Life, up against the Olympics and Grey’s Anatomy and not promote it or give it a chance to create buzz, failure is certain. Is this why we keep getting shows that appeal to our basest instincts and are often garbage?
As a Medium and Clinical Hypnotherapist who does regression therapy for clients, I understand and “get it” which I suspect most people would not. The concept was good but the reality of the way the show was shown, was not realistic. Karma, as like anything else, can be positive or negative. Past Lives can definately affect our current lives and the choices we make. I would have liked the show to have been given a chance but the writing would need to be revised to reflect the reality of karma and past lives.
would love to learn more about your work…do you have a site? or e-mail contact ?
Fox made a bad decision to run Past Life during the Olympics and against Grey’s Anatomy and Mentalist. Despite that, why toss the rest of the episodes already in the can? Running the pilot and 2 episodes does not give the viewers a chance to bond with the show. The show was well-written and well-acted with a very interesting storyline that was not given a chance to develop. And the real blow is that it has been replaced with yet, another mindless reality show. Stop trying to dumb us down. Bring back the scripted series and get rid of 90%… Read more »
YES!!!!!!!!!!TOTALLY AGREE………THANKS
Cheaters never win, David.
I liked the show a lot and am disappointed they are canceling it. I am, however, not surprised because I think that idea of reincarnation still hasn’t settled well with people. I agree with the comment that the main characters needed to be fleshed out a bit more, but the concept was interesting. I hope they at least air the remaining episodes.