It’s been a rough road for Mitch MicDeere. Now, it’s come to an end — at least on NBC. The Firm has been cancelled after one season of 22 episodes.
The Firm picks up years after the young attorney (Josh Lucas) made his deal with the mob to take his old crooked law firm down. He and his family have come out of hiding but their problems haven’t gone away. The show also stars Molly Parker, Callum Keith Rennie, Juliette Lewis, Natasha Calis, Tricia Helfer, Martin Donovan, Shaun Majumder, and Paulino Nunes.
The series represented one of NBC’s biggest launches of the season but it misfired right from the start. The two-hour premiere brought in a dismal 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic with just 6.32 million viewers.
When The Firm moved to its regular timeslot on Thursdays a few days later, the numbers got even worse. Week two dropped 29% in the demo and the ratings kept falling in subsequent weeks. After hitting an embarrassing low for a primetime show — a 0.8 demo rating with 2.97 million viewers — NBC sent it packing to Saturday nights.
 Loading ... |
The numbers have been awful since that move — even for a Saturday night show. It’s frequently outperformed by movies and crime drama reruns on the other networks.
To date, The Firm has an average of a 0.7 rating in the demo and 2.10 million viewers. On our NBC Ratings Report Card, which measures the relative demo success of shows on the network, the show has a “D-” grade — even after low viewership is taken into account.
On the positive side, NBC’s deal for The Firm is unique and a bit more like the one the network had for Merlin, the supernatural drama produced by the BBC.
Sony and eOne partnered to produce The Firm, primarily for the overseas market. Thanks to pre-sales and Canadian production tax credits, the cost of producing the series was already paid for and NBC was able to pick up the show for a greatly reduced licensing fee, just like any other secondary buyer.
Not surprisingly, The Firm won’t be back on NBC (according to TVWise) because the network has opted not to renew its deal with Sony and eOne. The series could continue to be produced for other markets however and even possibly be picked up by a cable channel here in the US. There’s been no word on the show’s fate beyond NBC so, for now, we’ll have to wait and see.
There are 22 episodes in the first season of The Firm and tonight’s marks the 17th. Right now, the finale is slated for June 23rd. If a second season isn’t going to be produced, hopefully the last episode will supply enough closure for the few million faithful viewers who’ve kept watching.
What do you think? Are you sorry that NBC isn’t continuing the show? Would you watch on another channel or purchase season two on DVD?
Image courtesy NBC.
A real shame, it is a really great series and unfortunately I only just found it after all these years once I subscribed to Amazon Prime.
I simply cannot understand why it wasn’t a success, and why the local audiences didn’t take to it. If it had been launched here in the U.K. it would undoubtedly have succeeded- so a failure by the so-called marketing experts at the network – idiots actually !
please get season 2 going
My girlfriend and I just finished the final episode and we can’t believe that The Firm was cancelled. We absolutely loved the show. We even put our other shows on hold so we could watch The Firm. Our shows we like are the NCIS series, Hawaii 5-o, Magnum PI, Blue Bloods, Stump Town, Briar Patch, The Sinner, 911 Lonestar, FBI, the Rookie, and FBI Most Wantged to name a few. The point is: We liked The Firm better than all of them. The movie industry shouldn’t listen to so-called critics who think they know what people like.
i love the firm .plz make S 2…im from iran .kiss
My husband & I are in our late 70’s and we loved the firm. It has been one of our favorites, for it is hard to find good entertainment without a bunch of garbage. We loved the pace, the story, no bad language, no sexual content. We ask that everything be done to continue it!
LOVED The Firm – the writing, story lines, acting & character development. It’s face paced, complex, but not too complicated &, as I said, the writing is better than many shows of this type. It honored the Gresham novel – its pace & complexity – and I think it even outdid it in character development. It was easy to care about the 4 main characters, and I will often wonder what happened to them after the story ends. I can’t guess why it did so poorly and ratings. I thought the acting was top notch. It’s exactly the kind of… Read more »
I also loved the firm. Please, season 2
THE FIRM WAS GREAT.WHY DID THEY CANCEL THIS?
I thought the show was excellent! Great story lines and suspense, just like the book and movie. Shame on NBC for not renewing it for a second season.
I loved the season of The Firm. I was totally addicted and want to see the ending. It was a great show and it needs to be finished. I think it was the networks fault for not promoting it correctly
I had no idea that “The Firm” even existed. It 2019 and I am just hearing about it and so far what I have seen I am really really addicted to this show. For some reason or another the advertising for this show or the lack of exposure is to blame for this show not being as popular as it should. This 1 season had me wanting more and for some reason it was cancelled but I can surely expect the people responsible for this show to realize that this in fact is a great show. Exposure is key and… Read more »
Derrick Freeman my family enjoyed this series; if not on cable, at least on DVD. We miss it and there was no closure in Episode 22. There has to be another season
Please bring it back, our family enjoyed this show so much and all the main cast members as well.
My husband and I really enjoyed The Film and was shocked when it abrupted ended after episode 22! Please bring it back.
I agree it was a good show! Hopefully after this many years.
Netflix or Hulu someone please continue the series. That public viewers don’t have to hang on never knowing what happened to Mitch ?
I never knew the show even existed I’ve just watch part one on Hulu I love the show and It didn’t have a proper ending we have to know what happened to Mitch!! Please bring Season two to Hulu or Netflix or Amazon
Agree! Bring it back !!