FX has decided to end their Rescue Me series after seven seasons and 93 episodes. The show will go out as it began; closely tied to the events of 9/11.
Rescue Me follows Denis Leary as a hard-living New York fireman who balances the challenges of his stressful job and crazy personal life. The series also features the talents of Diane Farr, Adam Ferrara, Mike Lombardi, James McCaffrey, Jack McGee, Tatum O’Neal, Steven Pasquale, Andrea Roth, John Scurti, Daniel Sunjata, Larenz Tate, Callie Thorne, and Dean Winters.
Though it’s still a high-profile show for FX, Rescue Me’s numbers aren’t nearly as strong as they once were. The first two seasons averaged about 2.7 million viewers per episode. The fifth season has been averaging about 1.4 million and 914,000 in the 18-49 demographic. Variety reports that’s a 38% decline from season four.
The drop in viewership likely comes as a result of the show being off the air for an extended period of time. There was a gap of 18 months between the end of season four and the start of season five, largely due to the writers strike. A series of webisodes were released in 2008 in an attempt to bridge the gap.
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In February, months before the premiere of year five, FX announced that Rescue Me had already been renewed for a sixth season of 18 episodes.
Of the early renewal, FX’s President and General Manager John Landgraf said, “Rescue Me is one of the very best series on television and a tentpole program for FX. We’re amazed by the quality of episodes for the upcoming fifth season, which are some of the best they’ve ever produced. I believe this show will continue to maintain a level of excellence for several years to come, and we’re thrilled to pick it up for a sixth season.”
Now that the network has seen the numbers for season five, it seems their enthusiasm has waned and have decided to make the next round the show’s last. But, instead of 18 episodes as previously planned, the final group of episodes has been increased to 19. The extra installment will presumably be used to cap off the series.
Rather than airing all 19 episodes together, the new plan is to break them up into two smaller seasons. Season six will air in 2010 while season seven will be held until 2011. Peter Tolan, the show’s co-creator, says the plan is to run the final episodes to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.
Of the final episodes, Tolan told TV Guide that Maura Tierney, who’s featured prominently in next week’s season finale, may pop up for the final episodes. He said, “We loved working with her — that was kind of a big deal to get her… She’s got Parenthood, but I think we have a deal where we can use her for four episodes. And since we have that deal, we will take advantage of it.”
What do you think? Will you be sorry to see Tommy Gavin and the other characters go? How would you like to see the show end?
Image courtesy FX.
Its a great show and it should continue. It should also keep reminding us about 9/11 so we know why we are in all these wars. More stuff on 9/11 being an inside job would be good.
Tommy should get over alchoholism and be promoted to chief.
actually quite glad they’ve been slowly easing away from humor. I still catch myself laughing at rescue me constantly. They still make jokes. But the fact of the matter is, the truly important parts of that show are insanely depressing. The show is a moral question: What makes a true hero? It’s genius. And this entire season has been Tommy trying to correct his problems and become a good person. He’s trying to fix himself. Frankly, it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever seen. By the way, Kaitlyn Badge: That was 2 seasons ago. You missed a complete season.… Read more »
In my opinion, this show and every other great series that’s gotten canceled in the past few years is due to the high incline of online viewers…no one watches live tv anymore! Why would we? Personally I’ve watch the series completely at least 2 times over. So my response to the ending, all great things come to an end, but to use a cop-out like it was viewer ratings is BS in my book. Thanks for reading…
Dear Denis Leary and Company: I really loved the show “Rescue Me” and I watched a lot of the episodes. Now that “Rescue Me” is off the air, I have a question for you guys. I saw the last episode where Denis Leary was forced to drink a lot of liquor at gunpoint, and Tommy (Denis) was told by the dude forcing Tommy to take many many shots of whiskey, that he was going to shoot him, and that with a lot of alcohol in his system and bloodstream, he would have a very slow death. However, I did not… Read more »
@Kaitlyn Badge: The show’s not over yet. As the article says, it will finish over the summer of 2011.
I WAS SO UPSET TO SEE THE SHOW IS GOING TO END!!!!!!!!!! LOVE IT AND TOLD A FRIEND THAT IS A FIREMAN……… TO SEE IF IT WAS ANYTHING LIKE THEIR FIREHOUSE!!!! IT WAS OFF AND ON TOO MUCH AND MANY MAY HAVE FORGOT IT WAS BACK! HOPE THEY CHANGE THEIR MIND AND HAVE MORE SEASONS!
This show is my favorite, being a firefighter i can make many connections with this show. This is basically the only show that is about firefighters, they have cops and shows about ems and etc but never fire. this show filled that slot and i love watching this show. i cant wait for season 6 to be on netflix so i can watch it. I might actually buy it but i think fx is making a horrrible decision by stopping after season 7. They could continue it past that and they aare disappointing many people by stopping. This show hits… Read more »
This really sucks, every show that is good always gets cannedback because they say people don’t watch it. However nowadays everyone waits for the season to end so they can buy the box set and in a weekend watching it back to back . Or they download it so they can watch it later, not everyone has time to be at home to wach it first airing. This show is as good as it was the first season. Yes maybe not as funny as it was but still has me laughing and i don’t want to see it go. Lost… Read more »
********. Great show. Shouldn’t end until these old farts die off in real life. Same thing happened to Firefly on Fox, some people got sloppy, bad things happened and the show was canned not for lack of a good show. What happens will happen but still, would really like the show to continue.
I feel ya Nathan, that’s wishful thinking….
I strongly agree with you Trish. I have every season and I can’t stop watching because I can relate to it so well. Wish they would do like 10 seasons.
I absolutlely love rescue me and I am pissed to see it go. While all the other networks are airing nothing but reality shows there’s always that one show that you could always count on to keep it real,Rescue me is that show. It is one of the most original shows I”ve seen in a long time, and to see it go I feel it is a big lost to Fx. I strongly urge them to reconsider…. I’ve never missed an episode and though some of the episodes were a bit depressing I felt it was still very truthful in… Read more »
I am heart broken to see the show end. It was the one show a week that I watched and could count on to make me laugh and cry. I hope Denis Leary and all the men and woman involved in the show know what a phenomonal job they did. I never felt like I was watching them act. It all seemed so real. I hope FX knows what they are losing because before that show no-one even knew that channel.
Rescue Me hit pretty close to me. I lost two family members in the 9/11 tragedy. This show brought alot of good memories back for me even though it had its depressing moments. I’m sad to see it stop….
I love it. Period. Every minute! Never, ever a dull moment.
The reason the numbers aren’t as high as they used to be, in my opinion, is that the show has lost its formerly side-splitting sense of humor. It used to be my favorite show for its perfect mix of drama and laughs, but the last two seasons have just been depressing. After watching the latest episode, I realized I hadn’t laughed once, whereas I used to practically piss myself I was laughing so hard. Remember Tommy on Prozack? Lou’s poetry about 9/11? Last season’s song/dance numbers were pretty great, but aside from that, the show has really plummeted, and I’m… Read more »