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.
 Loading ... |
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?
YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING….. One of the best shows on TV. Very intricate, plots, subplots, mystery, spooky . But, you have to really pay attention– this show was not mindless entertainment. Perhaps Fox is only looking for mindless audiences. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Give this another season.
I’m sad they cancelled, too, I really liked watching and now will wonder how it was supposed to end up, wah 🙂 …I am so sick of reality tv…but I guess that is the mindless entertainment the masses want. Ugh, tv sucks now 🙂
I seriously can’t believe they canceled this show! This was one of my favorite shows and I loved the mystery behind it. Fox seriously needs to rethink this one. Get rid of the stupid reality shows and let the actual actors do what they do best.
FOX cancels an awesome different exciting show like Alcatraz and keeps American Idol? I don’t get it. AI is old, I don’t know anyone who watches it, ever watched it or watched it after the 1st season. LAME. The only thing I watch on FOX now is the news and IDK how much longer that will last.
I demand that the writers of this show send me either the script or their thoughts about where the story was going. I LOVED this show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bring it back now please!!!!! Seriously fox….. bring it back. I miss Sam Neil already!!!
After this ridiculous move I’m going to avoid fox altogether. They don’t have anything else I even watch on the network.Idiots.
I can’t believe they cancelled this show! This was one of the few good shows on television! Why not renew it and put it on a different time and night! It had no chance at the time slot that it was on with all the other channels having established shows at that time! That’s just just cruel leaving all the fans of the show with so many questions! The season finale left us with more questions than answers, now I have to live with that!
FOX, this was one of your only good shows. Want ratings? Axe your marketing department, they couldn’t properly advertise giving money away.
I agree. This was a great show. Amazing and unusually original plot, and it gets cancelled while crappy shows like Jersey Shore are still going. Not to mention the 500 different variations of American Idol. Yeah if one show about watching people suck at singing wasn’t enough… Then they go and take an original and amazing show off like this? What is wrong with this world. We are gonna end up with shows Like the Muppets “Punch Teacher” and Idiocracy’s “OW! MY BALLS!”
Seriously! This is just horrible! I loved that show and watched every monday night! I looked forward to it every week!!!!! Fox I think was stupid for canceling this show! It was one of the best shows on air. RIP Alcatraz… you will def be missed…
Apparently a show that makes one think gets it canceled. It saddens me that good television is subjected to popular vote when the masses keep **** like reality tv on the air for years. At least let the producers make a few episodes to tie up loose ends so us fans can put closure to the insult.
i dont know what is wrong with the people who make these decisions, you never give a show a chance to get more viewers and you cancel it, but you keep stupid reality shows which i will not watch and i hope more people get on the band wagon and stop watching them, you cancelled alcrataz and finder, they were incredible shows and werent given a chance,
Big mistake by Fox. Big….
This was a great show…
Really disappointed that this was cancelled. It was an amazing show, and its extremely frustrating to not know the mystery behind the reappearances, and to be left hanging in the air after watching a whole season. Was really hooked onto it and they could have changed the timings or the days during which it was aired, I’m sure the ratings would’ve been better then. Really disappointed FOX..
alcrataz was the best show on monday nights, the best new show in a long time on any network.