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.
The FIRM was a tremendous series. It was exciting, suspenseful, had a STORY PLOT.
Couldn’t wait for the next week to watch. Can’t believe you’re not bringing THE FIRM back
this season! Rethink your lineup, there are so few good series on t.v.
I loved the firm and looked tonight to see when season two started. my wife and I started to really get into it in the last 7 episodes or so and I truly hope they reconsider and get it BACK ON THE AIR.
Wow, can’t believe that NBC is not bringing the firm back. I enjoyed the show and was looking for it and heard it has been canceled. Great show
What a great show THE FIRM is! There is so little quality on the Big 3 networks so to find a show with excellent acting and a great plot is terrific. No show can be successful when it’s up against shows like The Mentalist AND Person of Interest, though. It’s as though it was set up to fail. Let’s see which smart station will pick this show up and develop a viewership! The TV industry needs to develop new and more-creative models for program development, decision-making and ad sales that focus more on quality and less on laugh-a-minute sound tracks.… Read more »
I’m from Portugal and i watched every week this show on portuguese tv.. That’s a shame ending the shows like this! They don’t wanna know about the actors, producers, fans.. NBC only want money, good ratings, be more respectful!!!
Pls continue with d season 2 of “The Firm”… Its a humble request by d millions of sincere viewers!!! The only TV show wch i love to watch after Prison break
The firm is an excellent show. Slow in the beginning but then picked up. Great show
My husband and I rarely watch TV too.. but absolutely love The Firm.. can’t believe they took it off.. how could it have so low viewers as stated above..
It’s very disappointing that reality shows and greed can replace a great show such as the Firm. I really love this show and looked forward to it all week. Shame on NBC…
I’m very upset that the Firm is not being renewed. I absolutely love this show. It’s really disappointing that NBC is not renewing it as there are many people who actually enjoy good tv shows and not some of the crap you are chasing to replace the firm with. It’s really sad that its become all about money and stupid reality shows rather than great shows like The Firm.
My husband and I LOVED this show! It was relatively clean and so entertaining! We looked forward to Saturday nights to watch it.
My husband and I rarely watch T.V. but found this show to be relatively clean and interesting. I wish they would bring it back!
My husband and my absolutely favorite show on tv! It is the ONLY show we like! We couldn’t watch it at the original time but couldn’t wait to watch it on demand EVERY week! So sad…please bring it back!
The Firm is a high qaulity TV show on a low quality network. Few viewers look to NBC for quality programming thus The Firm’s fate was sealed when NBC picked them up. This show would have been a hit on any other network.
This was our favorite show of the year! We watched it every week and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. When we weren’t home, we would catch it on “On Demand.” We have been anxiously awaiting the second season. We would definately watch it on cable or buy a DVD.