Bones has been a quiet hit for FOX but the same can’t be said for its spin-off, The Finder. FOX has now cancelled the low-rated series after one season.
The Finder is a procedural series that revolves around a man (Geoff Stults) with the extraordinary ability to help people find the unfindable. Other castmembers include Maddie Hasson, Mercedes Masohn, and Michael Clarke Duncan.
The spin-off debuted on January 12th to a disappointing 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 5.50 million total viewers. It was fourth in its Thursday night timeslot right out of the gate and lost nearly 30% of the all-important demo from its compatible lead-in, Bones. This was not a good start.
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Things picked up a bit in the following weeks, thanks in large part to the show having FOX’s blockbuster American Idol as a lead-in. Still, the numbers weren’t as high as they should have been.
After seven weeks on the air, FOX put Finder on hiatus and then moved it to Friday nights, giving its Thursday timeslot to Touch. If The Finder could maintain a healthy percentage of its viewers after the switch, it would likely garner a renewal.
But that didn’t happen and Finder’s numbers dropped like a rock. In its first Friday airing, the freshman series attracted a 1.1 demo rating — an episode-to-episode loss of 53% — with just 4.03 million viewers. The numbers for future episodes fluctuated a bit but didn’t really get any more encouraging. The network could do just as well or better by running cheaper reality programming.
The season finale of The Finder is set to air this Friday night and there won’t be any episodes after that. Hopefully the producers saw the writing on the wall early enough and won’t leave viewers hanging with any major unresolved storylines.
What do you think? What went wrong with this show? Why do you think The Finder failed to attract a bigger audience? Was cancelling the series the right decision? How would you have fixed it?
I think the problem was the male lead – he just didn’t have the personality for the role. They needed a quirky, eccentric type for this – not another blonde beach boy. I just couldn’t believe in him? (Monk cornered the market in neurodiverse cops, and House for doctors – a younger blend of those two would have done the trick!)
Talk about be pissed off about a show.. there was so many cliffhangers it’s ridiculous only reason the finder didn’t do well is because people hate good quality shows the only thing the human race loves is sex violence homosexuals and anything disgusting good decent shows like this the disgusting human race hates
They should not have had the whole gypsy thing. I love this show and own every episode.
Someone needs too take the show too Netflix or somewhere who wants too watch any show on tv you have too wait a week for the next episode and our attention spans aren’t that long but you put it on a place we can binge watch and people will love it I haven’t watched regular ******** tv in years not worth my time
The whole concept of timeslots and the missuses thereof are outdated thinking. On demand is hte on.ly way to go.