As we predicted a few weeks ago, immediately following Kings’ less-than-stellar premiere, NBC has pulled the ambitious drama from its Sunday night timeslot.
Kings focuses on the fictional nation of Gilboa, a country that is very similar to our United States except that it’s ruled by a king, Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane). Based on the biblical tale of King David, the series features the talents of Christopher Egan, Susanna Thompson, Michael Patrick Crane, Allison Miller, Sebastian Stan, Eamonn Walker, Dylan Baker, Wes Studi, Joel Garland, Jason Antoon, Sarita Choudhury, and Macaulay Culkin.
The TV show’s two-hour premiere ratings failed to impress anyone with a fourth place showing of just 6.47 million viewers and a 1.6/4 rating/share in the desirable 18-49 demographic. The following week’s ratings were even worse with 4.62 million viewers and a 1.3/3 in the demo. Episode five, which aired on Sunday night, could only muster 3.64 million viewers and a 1.1/3.
Based on these weak numbers, the peacock network has opted to shift the remaining eight installments of Kings to Saturday nights at 8pm. Expectations are very low on that night and the networks typically just air reruns. It looks like NBC is committed to airing all existing installments of Kings but there’s little hope that it will be returning for a second year.
Effective April 12th, the network will fill the Sunday night timeslot with expanded editions of the Dateline newsmagazine. NBC execs believe it will serve as a better lead-in to Celebrity Apprentice which has been running from 9-11pm on Sundays.
Kings will begin running on Saturdays as of April 18th.
Image courtesy NBC.
I would love to see this picked up somewhere else if NBC truly is done with it. I think HBO is the more realistic destination, though I don’t see it happening. SciFi would probably love to pick it up, but there’s no chance they could maintain the quality, they’ve bailed on several series, even ones with excellent ratings, due to production costs, and from what I’ve heard, and considering the cast they have, I can imagine that few places could afford it.
Anyone remember American Dreams? Just the same situation: amazing show, inability to capture the uniform minds of the majority of America’s tv viewers. NBC, give this show a chance.
Again? NBC needs to give this show a chance. I think the low ratings were a matter of low publicity. If they had given Kings the build up they gave Heros, then they would inevitably have higher ratings. Come on NBC execs, have a little faith in your shows and have pride in what you produce. Give people a chance to find Kings before you pull the plug on a show with so much potential.
-This is an awesome show, one of the better to come from NBC. Come on everyone, tell all your friends and family!!
I think kings is aten very well written show. The acting is superb and it is shot well. Kings is adult entertainment and I believe very strongly that it should be given a chance for its audience to build. I personally have been telling all my friends to watch. Keep Kings in full production it will find its legs.
I just started watching and I think the show is awesome; I hope the show is renewed. I agree with Clint I am sick of NBC (and other networks) pulling good shows for more ‘reality’ crap. Hopefully SciFi or HBO will pick it up. All the good shows are on cable these days anyway.
It seems every time NBC produces a show that interests me, they fail to give it a second season. This Drama finally pulls me away from the endless rederick of “reality television”, allowing my escape into some place that I can finally loose myself. The story line though far fetched is believable, with believable characters. I think what Kings needs is a better time slot (my suggestion to replace one of those AWFOL “reality” shows) and give it better publicity, it’s time good television came back!
Best show on TV since Firefly and Lost. Come on, NBC, promote it in its new time slot and it could really catch on!
This is a shame…i am really enjoying it. But NBC put it in a bad timeslot and didn’t promote it properly. It would be great if HBO picked it up…but i just don’t see that happening. It’s apparantly very expensive to produce…:(
I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD though 🙂
I agree, I really enjoyed this show. Petition sounds like a good idea. I question Nielsen these days too. with reality show overload, i prefer ‘escape from reality’ and to be entertained by what all the creative Hollywood writers, etc. have to offer…next episode should be good…
Where are the viewers? Either the American public prefers complete and utter reality crap like “Extreme Makeover Home Edition”, or Nielsen’s rating system is serious flawed. Suspect that some of each is true. I am suspicious of Nielsen largely because of a very, very large swath of highly creative, well-written shows with good casts and good production that have been supposedly been greeted by low viewership in recent years. Although I believe that much of the American public is composed of morons who really do prefer mindless drivel, I don’t think the percentage is as high as the Nielsen ratings… Read more »
Maybe HBO will pick it up. They arent doing anything descent, at the moment. And Kings did feel like NBC making an attempt at the ‘Deadwood/Rome’ style of storytelling.
Shows 1-4 were shown on SciFI. Was pretty good. Bad time slots, though.
It’s not horrible, but I haveseen better. Id be sad if it was cancelled!
This show can’t be cancelled…. It’s too good… Why don’t people watch it???
What are the chances for the show to move on SyFy? Can we do something about it? A petition or anything like that?