Court will soon be adjourned for the Mark-Paul Gosselaar drama, Raising the Bar. TNT has decided to cancel the series after two seasons but, there may still be more to come.
From executive producer Steven Bochco, Raising the Bar revolves around a group of law school classmates who work on opposite sides of the courtroom. The drama’s cast includes Gosselaar, Gloria Reuben, Currie Graham, Melissa Sagemiller, J. August Richards, Jonathan Scarfe, Teddy Sears, Jane Kaczmarek, Stacy Hall, Natalia Cigliuti, Paul Joyner, Wayne Lopez, Jon Polito, and Angel Oguendo.
Back on September 1, 2008, the series premiere attracted 7.7 million viewers. That set a record for TNT as the biggest audience for a new series launch on regular cable. Unfortunately, much of the audience didn’t return for later episodes which averaged 5.5 million. Despite an early decline, TNT renewed the series for a second season.
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On June 8th, season two of Raising the Bar attracted just 3.6 million and shed half of the audience of its lead-in, The Closer.
As a result of the low ratings, the cable channel has cancelled the legal drama. Via a statement, a TNT representative said, “Everyone at TNT had a great experience working on Raising the Bar with Steven Bochco and the rest of the show’s terrific cast and crew. We’re proud of the series and appreciate the efforts of all of the creative people who were involved. Unfortunately, ratings for Raising the Bar’s second season did not reach the levels required for TNT to renew the series.”
TNT had opted to split the second season into two parts. The first dozen episodes finished airing on August 24th. That leaves three episodes on the shelf. It was expected that they would air in early 2010 but they haven’t been given airdates yet.
What do you think? Are you upset that the series has been cancelled? Why do you think that Raising the Bar failed — acting, storylines, or something else?
Image courtesy TNT.
I just came across this series and binge watched the whole of two seasons. Damn! I can’t see why it wouldn’t be appealing ? There are plenty of procedural/ law types of shows that aren’t nearly as good. Why didn’t another player pick it up? Sigh…….
Why would they cancel a show as good as this?. Are they sure about the audience figures? This is really annoying.
this was good show wish they could bring this back
Really sad having finally got to see season 2 to know that there is not more to follow. The series felt real, the human interest in the interaction between the friends who work on the opposite sides of the fence was truly compelling ! The characters were believable and interesting. Now we’ll never know what happened to judge Kellerman !
Great show, brilliant actors. Hurts when quality gets the axe!
Raising the bar was a very good series, far ahead of it’s time I believe if it where brought
Back it would be #1!!!! Bring it back please!!
terrible decison to close this show…so well done…
perhaps a different cast would allow this to be brought back…
the story of the justice system is compelling….need more of it..especially in todays world..
Raising the Bar depicted the reality of our judicial system and what it
does to people that get caught up in the system. It shows that there
are often hard consequences for decisions people make, civilians,
lawyers, and judges. It’s a shame they don’t continue a great program.
Really upset that they chose to cancel a show with some meat on it. It portrayed on the real court room and law works, not the quick hurry up version you get from law and order. This show shown how people inocent can be wronged and convicted like in real life. Sad