For a show about past lives and reincarnation, FOX’s show has certainly had a very short lifespan. With poor ratings and reviews, the network has cancelled Past Life after three episodes.
Inspired by the book, Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose, Past Life revolves around past-life detectives who try to discover if a person’s problems and visions stem from traumatic events in a former life. The series stars Kelli Giddish, Nicholas Bishop, Ravi Patel, and Richard Schiff.
FOX had originally ordered 13 episodes of Past Life but, in mid-October, cut that to just seven installments. The official reason given was that the network had a plethora of mid-season programming but the move sure wasn’t a sign of confidence for the project.
The TV series got off to a poor start with a special showing on Tuesday, February 9th. Past Life averaged 8.32 million viewers and a 2.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Those numbers aren’t bad on their own but they do represent a loss of about 70% of the American Idol lead-in audience. What’s more, a significant number of people stopped watching before the Past Life episode had finished. An average of 9.6 million were watching the first half hour but only 7.14 million watched the second half.
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A couple days later, Past Life debuted in its regular Thursday night timeslot. Predictably, it was pummeled by the competition. It came in at fourth place in its timeslot with just 5.3 million viewers and a terrible 1.4 in the demo.
Last night’s episode was even worse. Per the overnight ratings, Past Life registered just 3.9 million viewers and a 1.1 in the 18-49 demographic. That’s particularly disappointing when you consider that most of the other networks were in repeats.
American Idol will be expanding to Thursday nights for the next three weeks and run at 8pm. Rather than give more time to a sinking ship, FOX execs have decided to pull Past Life and replace the drama with episodes of Kitchen Nightmares.
Nightmares will continue to air on Friday nights but those episodes will be repeats. On April 1st, original episodes of Bones and Fringe will take over on Thursdays. New episodes of Nightmares will then resume on Fridays.
The network says that the remaining four episodes of Past Life will surface at some point in the season but, given their overflow of successful programming, that doesn’t seem all that likely.
It would seem that the Past Life cancellation was decided either late last night or very early this morning. The “masked scheduler” tweeted, “Drove on to the lot and the Past Life poster was being torn down….hmmmmmm.”
What do you think? Was Past Life worth watching or did it deserve to be cancelled? Do you think FOX will really air the remaining four episodes?
Image courtesy FOX.
I loved the new series, and can’t believe after only 3 episodes, they can know how it will do. It takes folks awhile to warm up to new ideas (i.e. past lives). The series “Ghost Whisper” was nearly doomed in the beginning, but it wasn’t pulled, and now it has a huge cult following.
It’s no secret that FOX likes to look at $$ signs, instead of having faith in a new project. Makes me want to boycot American Idol, permanently.
Hummm. Boycott of Fox or Boycott American Idol. American Idol is already on the down slope. Maybe giving it a bit of a push would help it along. The people’s real power is in showing those people who pray to the almighty dollar that their power is fleeting and depends on the other people to continue giving them their perceived power. Anyone else think that the other channels could do better and might deserve our attention more than Fox? There seems to be a change in the winds!
I agree! I really enjoyed Past Life. I went to look for it Thursday night and couldn’t find it. I only found out if was cancelled by googling it to see if it was available online. I really hope Fox brings it back.
Past Life was a winner, where FOX got their dissapointing numbers from is a mystery to me. BRING IT BACK!!!!!!
What are they thinking! I loved the show and started telling everyone to watch the show and now it’s cancelled! The shows were brilliantly written with twists that kept you guessing. They didn’t give it a chance — I am sure it would have caught on. I wonder if there is any chance they’ll try to bring it back in the summer. I hope so.
I was wondering why Past Life didn’t come on Fox this week. It was such a great show. All three episodes were the best. There’s not a lot of viewers because duh, the Olympics are on so Fox shouldn’t cancel a show because of the small amount of viewers. *shakes an angry fist*
Fox sucks for canceling such a smart and intelligent show! I thought for once you would give us a decent show and you already took it off!
I thought this show was great. Shame on you Fox for not giving it a chance. Seems like every show I thought was fantastic has been cancelled way too soon…Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, Dollhouse, Joan of Arcadia, Dead Like Me, Merlin. Seems like shows containing mysticism or fantasy are having a harder time finding an audience. Networks are depending too heavily on cop dramas and reality shows. Wish they would have allowed Past Life to show on Thursday after Idol to see if that time slot would attract more viewers. So glad we still have Ghost Whisperer and Medium to… Read more »
That was one of the best shows. But that’s what they always do with the good ones.
I really liked the show, specially the third episode. Totally agree with Gary here, think many people just aren’t ready for something like this. I really hope, they’re gonna show the the last 4 episodes at least!
personally I am very dissapointed that they dropped the show only after three episodes!! I am one of many who have had past life trauma and recall so a show like this was nice to feel like people like myself are not alone or crazy. If fox would have just left it alone on it’s original slot after American Idol it would have been fine. You all ready had the veiwers for that show so a percentage would have stayed tuned to watch Past Life after. People do not like it when you mess with their shows. I think Fox… Read more »
I love the show, “Past Life”, but I guess its to spiritually and intellectually mature for American audiences. Having read and researched reincarnation, past lives and the impact past lives can actually have on us, I was really getting into this show. Not many people may realize that the “Quantum Leap” series was symbolically, at least, was about multiple incarnations, though in a sci-fi envelope. With all shows on mediums, I’d hoped that Past Life would find an audience. I would like to see all 7 episodes.
I am so disappointed that you have not give Past Lives a chance….I loved it and had just seen it (recorded by my daughter) and was ready to watch it live tonight….but it wasn’t there…
Also, I just told a large group of friends to watch….they all wrote down the day, time and channel to watch…and now I know they are disappointed too…
You should put it back on.
I agree the show was great!
The characters were well developed and it was an original and fresh.
It is bad business for Fox just to cancel a show out of the blue without notice especially when the next episode is advertised to air and then suddenly yanked from programming without any warning?
Fox, where is your loyalty to your viewers?
Again, bad business.
I agree.
What is up with advertising the show to air tonight and then canceling it.
At least show some loyalty to your viewers and air the four remaining episodes.
wtf, i loved this show, it was awesome. i just went to watch it and wow stupid chef ramsey is on. Fox u suck!!!!
i agree!