NBC, you silly son of a bitch, you just can’t get ahead in the game of “producing series that are meant to stand the test of time,” handing out pink slips as if they were candy. The latest promising series to get the ax is the spy drama Allegiance, a midseason addition that was part of the network’s push to excise comedies from their Thursday night schedule. No one is laughing, if that was their point.
Allegiance only made it through five episodes before getting yanked from the schedule. It’s no huge surprise, really, since the ratings haven’t been noteworthy. After pulling in almost 5 million viewers for its premiere last month, the ratings drooped down to around 3.5 million, with lower than a 1.0 demo rating. Seems like the main people watching this show are those who were old enough to be worried about Russian threats when the Cold War was happening.
Allegiance, taking cues from FX’s acclaimed series The Americans, focused on a CIA analyst who is unaware that his parents and sister are Russian sleeper cells, and that they’re being called back into action. With actors like Hope Davis, Scott Cohen and Gavin Stenhouse, the drama definitely had the acting talent to keep going, but I doubt this will be one of those shows where people petition to get it saved, and it definitely isn’t the kind of project that Netflix would step in and pick up. Here’s hoping that NBC and Hulu hook up a deal to air the rest of the produced episodes, at the very least.
By next Thursday, NBC will have already flipped the schedule up, replacing Allegiance with the miniseries The Slap, according to THR, in order to try and boost that show’s ratings with a post-Blacklist timeslot. If we’re being honest, The Slap’s ratings haven’t been any better than Allegiance’s, but the star-studded adaptation of the hit Australian series is more of a priority for NBC. Plus, in the earliest Thursday slot, The Slap was up against American Idol, The Big Bang Theory and Grey’s Anatomy, which was just shoddy planning.
NBC already kicked A to Z out of the schedule earlier this year, along with Bad Judge, and they pulled About a Boy from the schedule, basically neutering their entire comedic lineup. (Sure, Marry Me is fine, but you can’t tell me Undateable and Welcome to Sweden are signature series.) On the freshman drama side, The Mysteries of Laura landed a Season 2 order, but it doesn’t look as good for State of Affairs. And there’s no bigger “Will They/Won’t They” on TV right now than Constantine, which amassed a sizeable fanbase despite its Friday night timeslot and lack of network love. Maybe if Allegiance had just added some demons to the show…
