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.
I don’t know why people were not watching it. I DVR’ed it. Do they count that in the ratings? I like the show and started searching to find out why it wasn’t recording on the DVR.
every time i find a good show on abc the pull it!!!!! first it was dirty sexy money then the forgotten and happy town!!!! no wonder why i stopped watching abc!!!!!! any show that’s good they always pull off the air!!!!! i agree with ‘BB Rabozza we all should ask syfy to pick it up!!!! feedback@syfy.com
I love Happy Town!! Even if they pull it from TV they should put the rest on Hulu! I don’t have cable anyway…
Hey everyone! Let’s all write to SyFy and ask them to pick this show up… email them at
feedback@syfy.com!!
I love Happy Town. I think it is stupid that they are cancelling the show. I hope thay decide to show the last five remaining eposides so I can find out who the Magic Man is and not be left hanging like I was when Fox cancelled the tv show reunion. I think for it being summer the ratings that Happy Town did recieve are good enough to keep it on the air. I believe the tv stations pull shows off the air way to early and do not even give them a chance to succeed. I hope the big… Read more »
I loved Happy Town, ABC doesn’t give any shows a chance anymore, when every I tried to watch there would be something else on in its place and I would have to watch online. I’m sick of getting invested in a show and wanting to watch each week and it getting cancelled before we get anywhere. I too am sick of all the reality shows. I don’t know if there will be much ABC watching in my future, since I never get to see the end of things because they are too quick to cancel. ABC ought to do the… Read more »
I love Happy Town! It seems if a show is not a comedy—–the station pulls the show! They do not care whether it is good!!!!! for e.i. “East Wick”—Everyone that I know loved that show too. It was pulled!!!
Shows like “The Big Bang” stays on!!! I think it is horrible!!!!!
It seems EVERY time there is a good show on, it gets cancelled before it has a chance! (Moonlight, Happy Town) I want Happy Town to finish the story…the only reason ratings are bad is the time of year it is….SUMMER!!! school out…graduations…vacations…there are TOO many reality and stupid shows where everyone has DRAMA and you can’t even hear for BLEEP…BLEEP…BLEEP! What have we done to TV??????
I was really enjoying Happy Town. Really bummed about it being cancelled.
I thought I’d finally found something to watch rather than a reality show……… Now there is going to be such a long gap between episodes, for the viewers who were watching, to find out the ending.
Assuming of course we get to see the conclusion!
I love HappyTown. I don’t understand why it was taken of the air with no warning? What about the viewers who LOVE it? The show and the viewers were short changed. Now what? This was the hightlight of my week. 2 weeks ago when it was on last which was june 16th, it said HappyTown will be back in 2 weeks. Now it’s 2 weeks later and no HappyTown. I’m bummed. I waited 2 weeks for nothing. I hope it is brought back. I work with a handful of people who love it also.
I had not seen the premier but caught it on hulu. I am pretty particular about what I watch and this show had it all,suspense, drama, and decent acting, the storyline had all kinds of twists and turns I absolutely loved the fact it kept me guessing not many shows can do that. People did not know what they were missing they need to air more episodes maybe more advertising but they are letting a potential gold mine slip through their fingers. I just found out they pulled the show off the air and am really bummed about it.
I love Happy Town. The show isn’t like all the others on TV. I am so upset that no one is interested in the show. I think it is hard for people to get into it because if they havent seen every episode, the viewer is lost. I tryed to get some of my friends to watch it but they had not seen the first two and didn’t understand what was going on and lost interest. the show also has a different kind of “drama”.
I was all set to watch tonights eposide and then a re-run of Castle is on instead! Very upsetting. I love the show. I watched all of Twin Peaks, years ago and last year all of Harper Island. Please Bring Back Happy Town….don’t leave us hanging 🙁
I love watching HappyTown. I have watched every episode and was very ecited to watch more and find out who the magic man or woman really was. I am pretty sad that the show is going to be cancelled and totally disagree. I also enjoy the show because some of it was filmed in my home town and I can recognize some places in the show when watching. Bring HappyTown back, it was awesome
What he said (Jay Queper). I’m so fed up with there being nothing on TV besides reality shows, or crime and/or hospital dramas. Intellectual shows, family/community dramas (like Happy Town), mysteries, even science fiction and fantasy are much more interesting to me. I’m getting gun-shy with the major networks anytime I see a potentially interesting new show start up — as soon as I start looking forward to watching it, they yank it off the air. Or split it up into 4-episode “mini-series” blocks with so many months of garbage in between that I’ve lost interest in it (or forgotten… Read more »