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.
What the heck?! Doesn’t anyone enjoy a good TV show?! This was like one in a million that they are taking away from us people that have a spare moment to even watch TV! It was totally awesome!!!
Seriously?! Fox made a bad decision…so American Idol is taking over the world..give us Past Lives to focus on something other than the leading so called Zombie world of American IDOL..I BEG OF YOU!!!!
BTW, take off old Law and Order re-runs and put Past Life in a better area…I am almost certain, people are tired of those boring episodes.
I for one loved this show. Even with only seeing the episodes aired, I know it was a good show. Very upsetting that it got canceled. Wasn’t given a chance. It was a really good show.
I agree that this show wasn’t given a chance…remember October Road anyone??? Let’s face facts, reality shows are cheaper to produce and as long as people watch the they will keep shoving them down our throats! It doesn’t take brains to come up with a reality show idea, but making anything else takes thought and creativity. Those guys are sitting up in the clouds raking in the bucks for crappy productions with minimal thought involved. They have become lazy and the public has become brain dead watching that crap. I hope sometime soon they will come down from the clouds,… Read more »
This show has a lot of potential and it is unfortunate that it wasn’t give a fair chance. The story line is fascinating and has the potential for identifying underlying reasons for behavior which seems on the surface to be illogical, but which resonates deeply within a persons inner nature. It offers another dimension to the life experinence and an opportunity to cast aside the “cookie cutter” representations of people that are frequently prevalent in so many of todays t.v. shows. The actors were good and could have benefited from working together longer to become a well oiled machine. I… Read more »
I really liked Past Life and am very disappointed in fox for canceling it. It was one of the few shows that was not only interesting but gave an insight into reincarnation, a subject which has yet not been explored in TV. Please bring it back!
Past lives was interesting to watch I was memorized by the show . Not sure if something like this is actual real but it drew mw in to watch it . I did not know it was canceled I was wating for the next episode and like what everyone wrote everyone should have gave it a Chance!!! before asuming it won’t get any ratings GGRRR !
Past Life is the best new series in a long time and they were dumb to cancel it! If they get SMART they will BRING IT BACK!
I enjoyed the premise of this show and am sorry that it wasn’t given a chance! Gave up Idol after the show dumped Chris Daughtry..so fixed and just plain B@&&$%!*
wouldn’t waste my time with Nightmare..guess I’ll go back to reading a good book!
It’s too bad this show was canceled – I was really enjoying it and it had a ton of potential! I never watch American Idol! I’m not going to watch the Kitchen Nightmare show either – bring back Past Lives!
I loved this show. I am so disappointed that it was cancelled without giving it a chance. I had watched the episodes and kept them on the dvr. My husband watched them with me tonight and he liked it too. I hope they show the other episodes or put it onto a dvd. I wish another network would pick it up.
this is ********, why would they cancel it, the show didnt even get a chance.American Idol sucks and it isnt getting canceled everyone votes on looks and they watch it to laugh at people. past life deserves a second chance
I saw commericials for the show and was excited for the premeir. I loved it and found the plot to be very interesting. There are not a lot, if not any, shows that have this perspective on life. When it wasn’t aired agian, I was shocked and disappointed at the cancelation. Please bring it back, and maybe change it around a little bit so more people could enjoy it. You could also show more commericals for the show. Thank you for at least giving it a try and capturing my attention for the weeks it was shown.
I love this show and was extremely disappointed that they cancelled it and replaced it with kitchen. Gosh people didn’t even give this show a chance. I wish they would put it back on.
this show was great i loved it and when it just stopped coming on i couldnt understand why something so stupid like american idol would show when past life was coming on. how can lost stay goin and past life cant?
This show royally sucked. The actual crime stories were cliched, the theme of reincarnation was utterly ridiculous, and there was WAY too much melodramatic filler. Kelli Giddish has been able to make any character seem interesting, but with these scripts, she met her Waterloo.