I don’t know if the coup makes a sound or not. But I do know that if you have a big dollar drama running on Sunday, and you can’t even manage to gather 4 million viewers, you will be sent to TV hell… Saturday… cue daunting music. I’m reminded of the classic Richard Benjamin horror spoof, Saturday The 14th (click it, it’s funny, and has Jeffrey Tambor). “It gets bad on Friday the 13th, but it gets worse on Saturday The 14th.” Or, as Keith put it in an email, “If Friday night is the death slot, is Saturday the afterlife?” Effective immediately, Kings is being replaced by another hour of Dateline on Sunday. The show will finish off its run on Saturday nights, beginning April 18th. And, it’s a pretty safe bet, that will be the end of things.
It’s too bad, because, as sometimes happens, the show is much better than the ratings it received. I’m not ready to call it the next great drama, but it is well done, and it stands out as something different in the sea of doctors, lawyers, and cops. It’s particularly troubling that the show hit this new low on the night of their biggest reveal yet. General Abner is in cahoots with Cross, because Silas has gone soft. It’s all setting up so well. And yet, I’m not even sure if I’m going to keep watching. The network has made it clear that they have no interest in continuing the story, so it’s hard to muster the interest in watching what’s left. We’ll see.
To be fair, I don’t blame the network for moving the show to Saturday. Less than four million viewers on Sunday is horrible. The network isn’t off the hook here though. Any show that falls to Kings levels deserves to be canceled/burned off. But Kings didn’t exactly fall to those levels. It was placed there. It’s the job of the creators of the show to keep and gain viewers, but the network has the responsibility of bringing an audience to the premiere. And NBC failed miserably in that regard. Chalk it up to bad marketing, scheduling, or PR. Whatever the case, Kings was doomed from that first night. It’s too bad, but it’s certainly not the first show to get a raw deal, and it certainly won’t be the last. While we wait for that next one, we can all get together and completely ignore Dateline on Sunday.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Apr 08, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
I wish it could go to cable. What a shame.
Dang it. I really like this show and look forward to it each week. I watch it live – with commercials and everything! And sometimes I watch it again online. It’s too bad that more people don’t realize what a gem this is. From the writing to the look of the show it is more intriguing than most. Could they move it to Bravo or USA?
Will they wrap it up or have they finished shooting? Besides, in my optimist bubble, they haven’t announced it’s cancelled yet right? Could we start a mail-in campaign? What to send to NBC? Butterflies? Too cruel – they’d be cheap to mail, but…
Unfortunately, the chances of a move to cable seem awfully slim. It would be hard enough to move a network show to a cable channel, for the simple fact of cost. And then you add to it the fact that USA, which is probably the most likely suspect, is already getting more viewers for things like Monk and Burn Notice than Kings was drawing on Sundays on NBC. And the move to Saturday probably won’t change that situation.
It’s a shame…NBC had a potential winner with this show…intrigue, drama, secrets, very well cast. And, the best part, it wasn’t one of those horrible reality tv shows that no one I know watches. Kings would have done better in a later time slot, y’know AFTER the kids go to bed, but before The Unit on CBS, which is the only good show on Sunday nights. 30 – somethings would have gotten into Kings if it were in the 9PM slot on the East Coast.
Who the heck is running their scheduling…some egg head that doesn’t live in the real world or deal with real family dynamics? Putting it on Saturday night is another winning idea! Way to go NBC, just keep aiming at your foot!