Many people first became aware of actor Jimmy Smits when he co-starred back on NBC’s LA Law in the 1990s. He’s worked on many TV shows since then — The West Wing, Cane, NYPD Blue — with varying levels of success. Now, he’s back in the courtroom again, playing a lawyer on NBC’s Outlaw. How will this new series work out for him? A big success or a quick cancellation?
Outlaw follows a Supreme Court Justice (Smits) who decides to step down and go back to being a lawyer to fight injustices. The NBC series also stars Carly Pope, David Ramsey, Jesse Bradford, and Ellen Woglom.
NBC gave Outlaw a special preview on Wednesday September 15th, in the plum spot of following the season finale of America’s Got Talent. The series premiere was reasonably sampled with a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 10.68 million viewers. Those are okay numbers on their own but it’s not a good sign that Outlaw lost a significant amount of America’s Got Talent’s lead-in audience — 42% in the demo and 35% of total viewers.
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A couple days later, in its regular Friday night timeslot on the 17th, NBC reran the pilot episode. Outlaw performed terribly but, after all, it was a repeat. The rerun attracted just a 0.9 in the demo and 3.93 million viewers. The NBC execs were surely hoping originals would perform better.
Not so much. This past Friday, episode two of Outlaw only mustered a 1.1 rating in the all-important demo ratings and 4.99 million viewers (per the overnights). It was in last place in both categories and lost a large percentage of its lead-in audience from Dateline. Last year, an episode of The Jay Leno Show even did better with a 1.6 and 5.79 million.
With ratings like these, it’s hard to imagine that NBC would bother ordering more episodes beyond the initial 13 installments. They may in fact decide to pull the show altogether and plug in repeats of another series. It looks like it’ll soon be back to the drawing board for Mr. Smits.
What do you think? Did you watch Outlaw? Do you like it? Is it worth saving or should it just be cancelled?
Image courtesy NBC.
Love the show. Watched three episodes back to back OnDemand and love it. A good, out of the box character for Smits to play – no Mr. Nice Guy, for sure. Supporting cast could use a little experience, but they’re coming along. Love it so far.
This is a great show – why cancel it? Move it to another time slot and see how it does! I love it and DVR it so I can watch it when I have the time!!!
Love the show! Time slot sucks but DVR is set to record !
Why put quality shows on Friday. It’s an almost automatic death sentence. I enjoy Jimmy Smits, the ensemble cast is pretty decent, and so far the scripts have been very well written. Move it to another night and give it a chance.
This is a great series. Keep it.
Loved it! Do not cancel it! Jimmy Smits is awesome in whatever he does. To be quite honest I saw it the first night and have not been able to find it since. Please advise what day and time to look for it
Great, Great Show. I have always liked JS and he does an excellent job on this show. With that said NBC will probably pull it because as we all know is ALL ABOUT THE MIGHTY DOLLAR. Has nothing to be do whether the show is any good or not.
finally someone with the insight to cast jimmie smits as a lawyer. he was awesome on l.a. law and i am really enjoying him in this new series. keep this series!!
GREAT SHOW
loved the show…a great treat on Friday nights!!! It is the only show we watch on Friday night, in fact…KEEP THIS SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would have to say one of the best law shows on tv reminds me of william shatners law show boston legal I want them to keep it…… time slot sucks fridays nights not a great slot also correction to who posted before me the mentaliest is on thursdays dif slot
The Outlaw is a first rate program. The only problem is it’s time slot up against “The Mentalist” and CSI NY. Let’s hope the powers that be will see this and reschdule before canceling an excellent show.
This program is schehedule @ Friday 10 pm channel 4 KNBC .
Just thought you should know. I miss the second show but you can see reruns on ON DEMAND under PRIME TIME then click KNBC and look for the program you want to see. That is how I do it when I miss a program. (need to have a HD box)
Meanwhile:
I LOVE THIS PROGRAM AND I HOPE ALL BIGWIGS READ ALL THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND CONSIDER OUR INPUT.
EVERYONE SHOULD GO ON KNABC WEB SITE AND SEND THEM AN EMAIL TO KEEP THE PROGRAM ON THE AIR.
Awesome show! Hope that don’t cancel, I must watch show, hope they move it to the mid-week!
liked the premiere. So sorry I missed episode 2 being out of town. certainly looking forward to 3. Smits good actor, one of few I follow.
We very seldom watch tv series; however, we happened to see episode two of Outlaw and are now hooked. Smits always delivers and it would be a shame to cancel this program. The last series we watched with regularity was West Wing!