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.
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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.
Totally agree with Connie. We so looked forward to this show. Hate reality TV. Such great actors and a fabulous story line on the Firm. We thought that this show was better than many movies we had gone to the theaters to see. Loved the characters. The Firm will be missed.
The network has made an error in judgement on this one!
Ridiculous…. let’s cancel a clever, well written , well acted show ….but let’s keep the endless reality garbage.
Sorry to see this go. We watched. We’d have liked to continue.
My son and I watch this show faithfully. We are hooked every episode. and bummed to hear its being cancelled. I really hope another network picks it up.
“The Firm” was/is a very good drama in a TV era that lack much for quality programing. It was well written and well delivered. I do not watch very much network TV, and this was one of the few programs that I did enjoy. It’s a sad comment on the general viewing audience’s opinion of decent TV programing. If it ever comes on again on cabel viewing, I will watch.
LOVE the show! HATE to see it cancelled 🙁 Makes me sad and upset that they cancel such good shows rather than try and put them in better time slots to increase the ratings.
The show is better than most that are on!
I liked the show. I wish the would have made a sequal to the movie, but I thought the tv show was interesting. Interesting enough for a season two, and more.
I really enjoyed The Firm and looked forward to it each week!
You’ve GOT to be kidding me?! I am finally starting towatch REAL tv shows and you’re going to go and cancell one of the few that’s actually good?! Someone at NBC needs to get a clue. Maybe if you didn’t have long periods of time in between episodes, and quit moving the time slot all over the place, people would continue to watch. The actors and writers did THEIR job. The executives need to do theirs and make better choices.
The Firm, is one of my all time favorite series…….hoping it will continue on cable!!
I love the show “The Firm”. One of the biggest challenges for me catching the show was its multiple time-slot changes. I kept trying to find it on Thursdays and wasn’t able to find it, so I watched it on-line. One Saturday night, when I was looking for something to watch I happened upon my favourtie new show. Since then I have been watching on TV rather than on-line. NBC needed to do a much better job at promoting the time-slot change. I hope that another network picks up this show.
what? cancel it too show some more of the reality “garbage”
Too bad. What are they thinking. We thought the scripts were intelligent sand the characters interesting
My family loved The Firm”! We DVR it every week, and watch it faithfully, even though they switched the time slot so much it was difficult to find. I wish it would be continued.