ABC has elected not to give back-nine orders to the freshman dramas “Last Resort” and “666 Park Avenue.”
The network confirms to HitFix that neither show will get full season orders, but ABC isn’t officially using the “c” word for either show.
Both “Last Resort” and “666 Park Avenue” will air their full compliment of 13 episodes, hence ABC’s preference not to refer to either show as “cancelled.”
A good comparison would be last season’s “Pan Am,” which aired all of its original 13 episodes, plus a bonus episode, but wasn’t picked up for a back-nine. ABC refused to call “Pan Am” officially cancelled even after that run of episodes was completed, even if that was both the general assumption and the final verdict.
So “Last Resort” and “666 Park Avenue” will air their 13 episodes and you can still hold out hope, but neither show will get 22 episodes and your hope may be slightly [but perhaps not entirely] futile. Neither drama has completed production on their final episodes, so the producers should/could theoretically have the ability to tailor their conclusions accordingly.
This isn’t a shocking verdict for either show.
With “666 Park Avenue” it was a total foregone conclusion, as the drama premiered low and has been stumbling along with 4-ish million viewers for live-same day viewing. “666 Park Avenue” got a solid Live+7 DVR bump among adults 18-49 of nearly 53 percent, bringing its season averages up to a 2.6 rating, but weekly numbers have been trending down. The overall audience was over 7.2 million viewers including the DVR bump.
“Last Resort” had been getting a comparable DVR bump, rising roughly 50 percent among adults 18-49 to the same 2.6 rating in Live+7, while going up to 9.86 million viewers overall. However, the drama had struggled in its Thursday 8 p.m. time slot, frequently losing to or tying with The CW in the 18-49 demo and slipping under 6 million viewers and a 1.3 key demo rating in its most recent overnights.
Because ABC has a number of midseason dramas waiting for time slots, including “Red Widow” and “Zero Hour,” the network didn’t have quite the same flexibility to try either “666” or “Last Resort” in different time periods, especially with rumors suggesting “Nashville” may be a candidate to move.