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.
So many shows that I really like have been cancelled or are on the edge of being cancelled. Life, Life on Mars, Fringe, Lie to Me and now Raising the Bar. I think the networks need to work harder on creativity in innovative scheduling, patience and marketing a instead of being so quick to cancel. We’re left with a lot of bad TV and lot of good, high quality shows facing or sitting on the scrap heap. How about multiple runnings of the same series as is done on many cable stations–there are plenty of dead spots in the schedules… Read more »
This show was the bomb and I’m so sorry that it didn’t get the ratings it deserved. Bummer.
Im so upset that this show has cancelled! We never missed an episode!! Bring it back!!
Oh no. I LOVED this show. What the heck. Please another network…pick it up. Good acting, good writing. I am soooo sad 🙁
Sorry to see this show go. My wife and I watched every episode of that show. I hope another station picks it up.
my favorite show
I loved Kessler (((
This show was absolutely cancelled due to poor marketing!! Before, I couldn’t watch one show on ANY channel without seeing a commercial to plug it. This was a fantastic show and it’s mind boggeling to me that they decided to make it go away!! I used to brag that TNT was WAY better than ABC and NBC – and getting better than CBS. Bad choice TNT….becareful or you will lose a lot more viewers than you could possibly imagine if you keep making poor business decisions like this one!
This show was canceled due to terrible marketing. Before the show aired you couldn’t watch TNT without seeing an advertisement for the series. I’ll admit that the show started a little show, but no one who watched the first 3 episodes could say that they weren’t drawn in not only by the good acting (very rare in this age of reality television), but the overall plot was was well developed. After the premier it was just set up to fail with late airings and coming after a powerhouse like CLOSER. They say season 1 averaged 5.5 million and on June… Read more »
Not happy about this at all…this was a great show..
I can not believe that this great show has been cancelled. This was by far one of the best shows on television. I tuned in because I was missing Boston Legal so much and wanted to see more legal drama. Raising The Bar filled that gap with no problem. Season two was way better than Season one and Season one was great! I’m sadden today. I thought my summer would be filled with more wonderful courtroom drama. I’ll miss you Raising The Bar and all of its wonderful actors (especially you Mark-Paul Gosselaar).
I am so sad to hear that Raising the Bar has been cancelled. It has a wonderful eclectic cast that work so well off of one another. I agree with the other comments on this page…if we can’t have it on TNT then move it to another channel…I really don’t care what channel it’s on as long as it’s on.
I too am dissappointed in the executive decision to cancel raising the bar. I watched it faithfully.I loved that show and all the characters in it. I don’t think they give enough time for other people to view the show. I think they deserve another try at it. I told everyone at work about this show and how great it was. I think possibly other shows on USA were on at the same time that Raising the Bar was on. Why don’t they look at that situation and see who was airing the same time- 10 PM on USA and… Read more »
Very disappointed that this was cancelled…we loved this show! We are “Closer” fans and loved that this show was on right after that. Maybe another network will pick it up…we have enjoyed Steven Bochco’s other shows and I think this would be successful if picked up on the right channel, day & time…we can hope!!!
What a shame! It was a great show. It had characters that you love, and ones that you hated. It was one of the three that I DVRed regularly.