The Knights of Prosperity: ABC Pulls the Sitcom

ABC recently reshuffled its Wednesday night schedule in response to the ratings powerhouse American Idol on FOX. As part of that reshuffling, the network moved The Knights of Prosperity from 9pm to 8:30pm. Would that be enough to save the sitcom? Apparently not.

The Knights of Prosperity debuted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007. The sitcom followed a gang of misfits (the “Knights”) who came up with the idea to rob Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger’s luxury apartment. The series featured actors Donal Logue, Sofia Vergara, Lenny Venito, Maz Jobrani, Kevin Michael Richardson and Josh Grisetti.

In its debut against the Sugar Bowl, Knights attracted a 4.4 rating (4.8 million households). The next week, up against regular competition, Knights attracted only 3.5 million households. Once American Idol began, the ratings got worse. ABC’s schedule move didn’t seem to help much (or actually take it out of Idol’s path when Idol moved to 8pm). The last episode only attracted 3.2 million households.

In truth, there were rumors that the series’ fate was already sealed back in late January. One source reported that Knights writers had been told by the network not to bother writing any scripts beyond the initial 13 episode order.

Now, ABC has pulled the series from the Wednesday night schedule effective immediately. A repeat of According to Jim will replace Knights on March 7th and repeat episodes of George Lopez will fill the slot on March 14th and March 21st.

Though it looks unlikely that the series will return, the series has not been officially cancelled by the network. An ABC representative has told us that the show will return at some point in the future. Timing wise, this was a natural story break with the Knights now turning their sights on a new target, Ray Romano, as revealed at the end of the February 28th episode. The episodes with Romano have been completed and would likely attract higher than usual ratings. We’ll let you know when we hear more. Stay tuned!