To no surprise, NBC has cancelled its latest foray into reality television. The show that has been on the “chopping block” since it premiered has come to an end. The network series has cancelled The Chopping Block.
Based on an Australian reality series of the same name, The Chopping Block stars celebrated chef and restaurateur Marco Pierre White (from the UK’s Hell’s Kitchen). The British Michelin star chef splits eight newbie cooks and restaurateurs up into two teams of four couples each. Each side is given an empty restaurant space in the middle of Manhattan. Working together, they must plan, open, and operate a restaurant in the most competitive city in the world.
In some ways, the series is similar to FOX’s Hell’s Kitchen show — except that it didn’t attract nearly as many viewers. The March 11th premiere attracted an embarrassing number of viewers, just 3.77 million with a 1.4/4 rating/share in the 18-49 demographic. The following week, it dropped to 3.46 million and a 1.3/4. This week, Chopping Block fell much further, to just 2.58 million viewers and a 0.9/2 rating/share.
Chopping Block has been cancelled effective immediately. For the time being, NBC will fill the timeslot with repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, installments that first aired on the network last year. Newer episodes of the drama are still scheduled to debut on April 29th.
The remaining five episodes of Chopping Block may air at some point in the future but it doesn’t look very likely.
UPDATE: Beginning April 1st, NBC started releasing a new episode online each Wednesday. While this is good news for those with high-speed Internet connections, this ensures that the network won’t be airing the episodes on broadcast television. To watch, go to hulu.com.
Image courtesy NBC.
I think it’s ridiculous that NBC couldn’t have at least finished the scheduled shows. I had just started watching and thought it was interesting. I don’t think reruns of “Law and Order” will be any more interesting. Let’s face it, there were millions of people watching!! The least they could have done for the millions watching was let us see who won. Wow!
DianeNV
[…] Comment! With only 3 episodes aired, NBC decided to axe The Chopping Block The reason, is as usual, low ratings. The remaining 5 episodes may or may not be aired. I doubt they would do that. I don’t get it at all, sure the rating wasn’t as high as expected, but the show was getting better, and I want to know who won!!! Sigh~just like My Own Worst Enemy, I hope the rest of the shows will be available on Hulu. Fat chance, but hey I can still dream. To read more, click here. […]
Once the black broad tried painting tree hugging hippies as racists, Americans stopped watching…as they should have. Seeing the race card played when that douche was the least likable person, and her husband was the most likable, shows how blacks still to this day try and victimize themselves. Had she not been on the show, and he had been married to just an average person of average skill, he would have made the final 3 couples. Too bad he married a weak minded fool!
The show sucked…Gordon Ramsey is much more fun to watch.
I was really liking this show. It was the first tv reality show that I could follow along with and understand how each person felt. I love cooking and am facinated with the whole restaurant/cooking/serving experience. I thought Marco was tough but you have to be to be able to survive in the restaurant business. Customer Service is hard and people are hard on you. He was passionate about food and he put the customer first. Its obvious he had a lot of hard knocks. I was sorry to see this one be cancelled. I hope it makes a comeback.… Read more »
I am a huge fan of Hell’s Kitchen and Top Chef and watch some of the Food Network challenges. This show took a couple episodes to get in to. The latest episode was very well put together. Very moving and for really the first time showed some of the drama that makes reality tv so addictive. I actually cared for the contestants. If there are eight episodes in all then there are three left to decide between two teams? I hope it doesn’t seem too drawn out.
I could barely watch the commercials for this show. The man has no redeeming qualities, and he’s not even nice to look at. He’s sour and bitter like his batter. The only serious thing about food is not having any. Food snobs are ridiculous.
Too bad the show was cancelled, we were following in then no more show.
It took a while for allot of shows to catch on like trading spaces ect.
At least they could of done was let it air till the end.