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.
Too bad! All the other things on t.v are over played and the same. Past lives gave a fresh new feeling to primetime, all the good ones get pulled!
It is a shame that FOX cancels the good shows. Maybe the viewers are not there in the mainstream, but shows like this get cult followings which can lead to a very specific target audience which would excite advertisers if they were told about this demographic. Age groups are too broad a slice of people.
CAN WE PURCHASE A COPY OF THE THREE SHOWS of PAST LIFE THAT MADE IT? They were wonderful! So well done. People need to know that these things are true. People are having these experiences and this helps them to know what to do and what is happening. Please bring Past Life back!
I for one am dissapointed in the shows cancellation. It was dealing with a subject rarely seen or used on a television show which was refreshing. I have zero interest in American Idol and never saw Kitchen Nightmare nor care to watch it. I hate to say it, but television nowadays sucks, very little that I care to watch. This show was recomended to me by a friend who liked it so I recorded it on my DVD and really enjoyed it. Shame I only got to see 2 episodes (I missed the first one). I hope another station will… Read more »
There is a reason why this show was cancelled…it wasn’t very good. Period. I watched the 3rd episode by chance and I said to my girlfriend…This show is lacking something and I don’t think it will make it. Next week it was done. I am pretty good at picking shows and their fate, so there ya go.Fox has a lot better shows than this, obviously, watch Fringe if you want a great, exciting and intelligent show. Rolling Stone just dubbed it that.
I thoroughly enjoyed the episodes of Past Life that I saw and was looking forward to more. I’m sorry that it has been cancelled.
i love show. why not put it on usa or some other channel
I loved this show. Its BS that it was cancelled. BRING IT BACK!
I loved this show and can’t believe it was cancelled. What a bummer!
I loved past lives and was just looking online to see when it was going to be on again…VERY sad that it was cancelled!!!
I loved this show and can’t believe it was cancelled. What a bummer!
I LOVED THIS SHOW!!! IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!! U DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE! THANKS FOR RUINING MY THURSDAYS FOX!! REAL NICE!!! U GUYS NEED TO GET SENSE, YEAH AND IM ONLY 14 SO U KNOW U GOT FANS AT ALL AGES. PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR I’LL MAKE SURE NON OF MY FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK DONT WATCH FOX EVER!!
just kidding, im jst upset please bring it back.
THIS SHOW WAS AMAZING!!!! it was thrilling, exciting and i looked forward to it every Thursday. Please bring the show back.
I loved this show! I hate when my favorite shows get cancelled! Grh!
I LOVED THIS SHOW MY DAUGHTER LOVED IT SHE IS NINE AND I GOT MY SISTER WATCCHING IT VERY DISAPPOINTED IT WAS TAKED OFF. PLEASE BRING IT BACK. DO NOT LISTEN TO OTHER PEOPLE. LSTEN TO THE ONES WHO LOVED IT.