FOX has thrown away the key on Alcatraz. The J.J. Abrams thriller has been cancelled after one season and 13 episodes.
Alcatraz follows the investigations of police detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and Doctor Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia). They work to uncover how 340 inmates and guards disappeared from the infamous prison in 1963 and why they’re now reappearing looking just the same. The show also features the talents of Jonny Coyne, Parminder Nagra, Jason Butler Harner, and Sam Neill.
Fueled by a lot of promotion, the TV series was launched in January and drew good reviews and strong numbers. The two-hour premiere attracted a 3.3 rating in the all-important 18-49 demographic with 10.05 million total viewers. Opposite some tough competition from CBS, Alcatraz was in second place in its timeslots.
In week two, the demo slipped 9% to a still respectable 3.0 rating with 9.03 million. Week three dropped another 7%. That wasn’t positive but not horrible either but the ratings just kept falling.
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In February, NBC launched season two of The Voice and Alcaraz’s ratings took a big dive. They ropped 18% on February 6th and then another 17% on the 13th. The numbers just kept falling after that.
The two-hour season (now series) finale was in fourth place in the timeslots and averaged a disappointing 1.6 demo rating with 4.76 million total viewers.
The first season of Alcatraz ended up averaging a 2.2 demo rating with 6.74 million viewers — and those numbers would have dropped lower had there been more episodes.
On our FOX report card — which ranks the network’s shows based on demo averages — Alcatraz has a “C” and that just wasn’t good enough to get a renewal.
FOX chose to keep Touch instead but the network stays in business with producer J.J. Abrams via the network’s Fringe renewal.
What happened? It would seem that Alcatraz just wasn’t compelling enough to keep viewers returning week after week. Plus, for the first time in quite awhile, all three of the major networks had really strong programming on Monday nights. Two of the competing shows — The Voice and Dancing with the Stars — are reality competitions and many viewers feel compelled to watch them “live” rather than catch them online or via DVR recordings.
All 13 episodes of Alcatraz have aired and the last episode left viewers wondering what would happen next. Unless the producers decide to share what they had in mind for season two, we’ll never know the answers to the show’s mysteries.
What do you think? Why do you think Alcatraz failed to hold onto a bigger audience? Did FOX make a mistake by cancelling the series? What will you miss about it?
Please bring this serie back, cause it’s really good, really don’t understand why this was cancelled..a real bloody shame
what a joke it was a really gd show and they did not give it time for it to take off!I mean it could take another season or 2 before it really takes off and as the storey went on the more people would hear about it and start watching it again GUTTED
Bring it back. Interesting show. Not everybody likes the voice & dancing with the stars. Don’t leave us hanging…at least do another season so we know how & why this all took place. Stop cancelling all the good shows!!
What a shame they cancelled the show- don’t watch dancing with the stars or the voice, tired of shows like the voice/dancing with the stars/ etc- again to bad its I enjoyed.
I watch bbc now american shows going down.
Another great show that a network pulled the plug on too soon and did not satisfy it’s viewers with a conclusion, which would have taken another season or two to explain. SyFy network needs to pick this up, it would be a great additon to their current line up of shows. I hope someone does. Even the CW, they are a network that loves to put this type of show out there and make a success of it.
they need to bring it back i cant believe they didnt keep going it was a great show and i never mised a second of it some body needs to bring it back
Never gave it a chance. It was a great show. I swear theTV execs don’t know what is good anymore!
Here in the UK we loved Alcatraz.
It was on a rubbish channel though. If it had been on a more popular channel it would have achieved higher ratings. If it was repeated I’m sure more people would watch and be addicted like us. At least write a book and let us know what happened, and why!!
Fox, please reconsider
plz come back to us lovely alcatraz 🙁
Baaaaaaaaaaaad!
Who did this to , a great show “brain dead exe
THAT REALLY SUCKS.. I WAS LOOKING SO FORWARD TO THE NEXT SEASON. I DONT GET IT …… HOW SAD
I think it was a shame that they cancelled Alcatraz. It was an interesting concept and I will miss it. Has anyone, other than me, noticed the flood of “reality” shows like the “The Voice” and “Dancing with Stars” (to name a couple) and how prolific those type of mindless shows are? How many shows do we need to show some type of talent or skill that someone has? I really don’t get into those shows, but I guess since America is overweight “The Biggest Loser” is more appealing to everyone who is overweight (like me). Whatever happened to fantasy… Read more »
we staff all watch the show and we have the dvd and we think it was an awesome show. we just can’t beleive that FOX cancled the show just after one season. This show was great and we was looking forward to season 2. we are very disappointed that it’s not on anymore. why they did it i don’t know all i know is that we all are pissed and we like to see alcatraz do their series 2.
Your competing with some of the best shows, and you still have millions of viewers. I would say your doing great! You leave people hanging and we are going to be much slower at getting into your next tv series.