After Monday’s disastrous debut of Lone Star, there has been talk that FOX might scrap the series after just one episode. Now, it looks like that won’t happen.
In Lone Star, Robert Allen (James Wolk), is leading a double life so that he and his father can pull off cons both big and small. Things get especially complicated when Robert feels personally connected to his marks and starts to regret what he’s doing. Others in the series are Jon Voight, Adrianne Palicki, Bryce Johnson, David Keith, Eloise Mumford, and Mark Deklin.
The show premiered to a terrible 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just 4.1 million viewers. It ranked a distant fourth in both categories and lost 69% of House’s lead-in audience in the demo.
Network execs are understandably confused by the series’ lack of viewers. After all, they gave the show a great lead-in, lots of promotion, and have a handsome and likable lead actor. FOX execs and many critics really like it too. The Washington Post called Lone Star “better than almost anything new this season,” while the New York Times said the show is “clever” and “endearing.”
According to NYMag, FOX isn’t throwing in the towel just yet. Lone Star is still in production, with the cast and crew working on episode six. FOX will keep the show on the air at least until this Monday. Their hope is that it will make some connection with viewers now that they’ve had a chance to sample the shows on the other networks.
At this point, any positive growth might be enough reason for them to keep it on the air another week. Unfortunately, they won’t see the DVR ratings for a couple weeks. Given the tough competition of the night, many people very likely recorded Lone Star to watch later.
Any way you look at it, the Lone Star’s ratings would have to come up a lot for it to be considered a moderate success. Even those that tuned in for the premiere may not bother to return, having already heard that the show is cancelled.
What do you think? Is Lone Star worth saving? Will you tune in, even though there’s a good chance it’ll be cancelled?
Image courtesy FOX.
Lone Star is excellent. It’s the best new show on TV so far. Move it to another night where it doesn’t have such fierce competition.
This was a great show, a hot sexy star, good acting, not the typical story. What in the world are they thinking talking about cancelling. Just like Kings, Carnival, all the good shows seem to go away cause the public is brain injured perhaps. Keep it on. Finally something fun to watch.
The thought of canceling a whole series after one-episode on a night that was filled with so many choices is ridiculous! As alot of people on here have mentioned, many set their Tivo’s and DVR’s to at least see all the programs that aired. I taped (3) different shows that night because there were so many I wanted to see! In my opinion, it would be wise to at least premiere three episodes for any program; so that people have time to weed out the ones that don’t like and faithfully watch the ones they enjoy. I’ve personally watched shows… Read more »
Cancel it now. It was terrible!
I LOVED the “Lone Star” premiere. Please don’t cancel this great show. It’s great to have a character who is torn and trying to do the right thing.
I really like James Wolk. He’s a really good actor and is the best looking man on TV, in my opinion. I enjoyed watching him in “Front of the Class.” He plays a different character in this one–a bigamist who is also a scam artist. But he seems to want to be a better person. And he really does love his wife and fiancee. And they are both really nice to him. It’s a new twist on the typical “cheater storyline” where the wife is a hag and the man has a nice girl friend on the side. The story… Read more »
loved it… a very interesting premise… a con man with a conscience…. keep it … keep it… I’ll tune it to see what happens next.
I really hope that Lone Star gets the opportunity to show its stuff. I really enjoyed th premier and I am looking forward to seeing how the characters are developed. It is unique and I hope it gets a chance to shine.
I thought Lone Star is great and should not be cancelled. Unfortunately, many people DVR’d it while watching other shows since the night was jampacked with hyped up shows. None of those other shows interested me-give Lone Star a chance!
Very stressful show. Gave it a shot since it is set in Texas and the creator is from Austin. A lot of lying and deceit. Not sure many Texans will relate to the show or watch it. Doesn’t seem to paint Texas or Texans in a very good light. Like the Actor that plays the main character, but not much else. Very surprised that this show was not generated from Hollywood creators. Definitely not Texas style.
In my opinion, David Keith is what killed this show. He’s just not a likable actor, and seeing him on the promos made me not want to watch it. (Not that it makes any difference, as I don’t have a Neilsen box or a monitorable DVR.)
YES!!! I will watch Lone Star, as I did on Monday. Lone Star is the next Mad Men for me.
And I will watch the episode re-rerun on Saturday as well, just to ensure I soak up on all the dialogue, nuances, facial expressions, set and costume design, and the sound track. After many years of success on Fox, I would watch it OnDemand and even into syndication like “I Love Lucy”.
I really hope that Lone Star will not be scrapped. Having seen a number of the fall seasons new shows Lone Star stands out as an intelligent and well acted show. The lead actor is especially strong and the show has darkness that gives it the edge over its rivals. Get the star onto some talk shows to promote it to death.
Living in Texas and loving the hyped melodramatic story line reminiscent of “Dallas” I really want to like this show but was not totally hooked by the actor playing the dual role nor the storylines being thrown around like darts with missing chunks making the connections hard to follow. I will probably watch it again to see if the show gets into a smoother flow and then decide if I am going to add it to my weekly list of programs to watch (if it sticks around). I also believe many, like us, recorded it and watched it later as… Read more »
Lone Star is far more interesting than almost any of the other shows on TV. I would love continue watching it. There have been many great shows in the past ie. ‘Seinfeld’, which did terribly in the ratings in their first few episodes, but later became enormous hits because they were given the chance to get noticed by fans.
It would be a shame to cancel Lonestar. Why not consider moving it to another time slot when it is not up against such stiff competition?