After just two weeks on the air, ABC has decided to pull Happy Town from the schedule. The TV show will be back but, for how long?
Happy Town follows the residents of a small town in Minnesota. After being plagued by kidnappings years ago, it seems the mysterious “Magic Man” has returned to start a killing spree. The cast includes features Sam Neill, M.C. Gainey, Geoff Stults, Lauren German, Amy Acker, Steven Weber, Ben Schnetzer, Sarah Gadon, Jay Paulson, and Robert Wisdom.
The series got off to a poor start two weeks ago with a 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 5.25 million viewers. Last week, for episode two, viewership took a nosedive to a 1.2 in the demo and 3.79 million viewers.
To no surprise, ABC has pulled Happy Town for the remainder of May sweeps. After tonight’s episode, the series goes on hiatus for two weeks and will return on June 2nd.
While this wouldn’t necessarily be a sign that the show will be cancelled, the ratings are. They’re terrible and there’s every expectation that they’re just going to get worse — especially with warmer weather coming and people spending less time in front of the TV.
After tonight’s episode, there are just five episode left. With numbers like these, fans of Happy Town will be lucky if the network shows the rest of them, never mind a second season.
Next week’s episode will be replaced by an edition of Primetime: What Would You Do?. On May 26th, ABC will present the network premiere of the Transformers movie.
What do you think? Why isn’t Happy Town performing better? Is it just not a very good TV show or are viewers just missing the boat?
Image courtesy ABC.
My guess is people aren’t watching it because they’re afraid of getting hooked on a show only to have ABC take it off the air. Can you say FLASHFORWARD?? This is the last time I get into a continuing show on ABC. They’re expecting every show to be LOST and that won’t happen. Even LOST got truly bad towards the end with a pathetically poor ending. MASH had a bad start, ALL IN THE FAMILY got a bad start, DICK VAN DYKE, HILL STREET BLUES… I guess programmers were just smarter back then and stuck with a potentially good show.
finish the show
I agree that they did not give it enough time to find it’s audience. Many stations do this and it’s really a shame. Not everyone wants to watch “The Bachelorette” or such fluff. Very sad.
I really wish they had given this a 13 episode series to run through the summer. Ratings wouldn’t have been huge, but if it isn’t on USA or FX at 10 pm during the summer, it usually won’t have huge ratings. Any new material during the summer months is welcome to me, especially this. I was sucked into the story before reading that it’d already been cancelled. And now things are going to nag at me for a while, until I finally forget that this show existed. Blah. 🙁
I really enjoy this show!! Unfortunately, it seems that most of the good ones are canceled. For this, I do not blame the actors or the writers BUT I do blame the powers to be at ABC. It seems they would rather attract viewers with feeble minded shows without a modicum of intelligence, instead of a show/s that have some acting ability and an intellect showcased in the writing and presentation.
Its not performing well because its on at 10pm…The show is pretty good and I have watched them all. Also the show isnt going to make it because ABC doesnt know how to keep good shows around..They suck…I also heard rumor of flashforward being cancelled..Yeah They are DUMB….This show has tons of potential.. They just need a new time slot like..around 8 or 9…
I cant believe they cancelled this show. In the summer there is such limited new programming, i was really enjoying this show. It is like a couple years ago when I think it was ABC cancelled the pirate reality show. Even if the numbers are low, let the people who are watching it finish it out. The ratings shouldnt matter in the summer, there are no summer sweeps for a reason.
ABC wouldn’t know good programming if it feel in their laps and started to wiggle. We have come this far in the episodes and on a cliff hanger no less, and we can’t get the last 2 episodes to air? What a waste of time and money on ABC’s part, not to mention my own. I’m sick of all the re-runs of mind numbing shows, and reality programming that I could puke. This show had good actors and a good story line. Keep it going. We need more programs like this. I LOVED Harper’s Island and I got hooked all… Read more »
What the heck! it’s not any worse that Scoundrals or The Gates! At least its not reruns! Finish it out!!!!!!!!!
Help get it back on the air… write ABC and tell them you want more of the show and enclose a slice of bread. If you watch the show, you’ll know why. When Jericho was canceled people did this with peanuts ( a reference in the show) and the network gave them another season, and said please, no more peanuts!!
When are the idiots who run TV networks, going to realize the 18-49 crowd don’t set at home and watch TV, anytime during the year. The 50 to ??? do. I agree that Happy Town could have been better and the story line seemed to be picking up.
I stopped watching this show after the conservative cheep shot comment. I was starting to think it was a stupid show, that comment proved it to me.
What “conservative cheep shot comment”? And, by the way, chicks (baby chickens) “cheep” and shots are “cheap”. So, look who’s looking stupid now. . . Certainly not the show.
I am enjoying the show. In my opinion, I find the story very interesting. The audience has a host of suspects to pick from in a small town. If ABC decides to end the show, I hope the audience is taken in consideration and the series ends solving the mystery revolving around this town. I am tired of beinging “spoon-feed” answers to “who-done-it” TV mysteries. This show is not doing this…. It is a good mystery! Thank you to the writers, actors, and all the people who put this together.. I look forward to seeing the show. Best regards!
Like all good shows, it got off to a rocky start ratings wise. But we don’t give shows a chance to succeed any more. Not when there are ripoffs like The Gates for ABC to put money behind. It’s sad that, with very few exceptions, if it’s really good, it’s going to be canceled prematurely. I wish all the networks would start writing finales for all shows in case of cancellation. This way fans can at least have some closure. And more importantly to them, it would be a great selling point if they put all the episodes on a… Read more »
It could have been a much better show. It has a good plot but very poor acting. I’m pretty sure a high school drama class could do better, just like CBS’s Harper’s Island. Happy Town is due for an untimely ending.