Over the last several days, CBS has made a lot of renewal and cancellation decisions. Shows like The Odd Couple and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders got the greenlight for new episodes, while fans had to say goodbye to shows like CSI: Cyber and Rush Hour. Refreshingly, CBS has shown a willingness to ship off well-liked but middlingly rated properties like Supergirl, which is heading to the CW in the fall. Now, CBS is looking to do the same thing with Limitless. So, what does that mean for the CBS series?
First and foremost, it means that CBS isn’t commenting on whether or not Limitless is cancelled or renewed yet. This is annoying, but it likely means that CBS saw potential in the property, but probably would have still cancelled the series. Luckily, there seems to be interest in Limitless from at least one other—likely cable—network. Unfortunately, CBS isn’t being particularly specific about what could happen with Limitless other than to say that the series could move forward elsewhere. Here’s what CBS entertainment president Glenn Geller said on Wednesday, per The Wrap:
Right now, we’re in discussions with other potential buyers, so I’d rather not comment on it right now.
That’s buyers, plural, which means there’s a good chance Limitless will move forward for Season 2 someplace that is not CBS. In fact, it’s pretty much done at CBS. The network announced its 2016-2017 fall schedule this morning, and while it includes a slew of new dramas, including Michael Weatherly’s Bull, a MacGyver reboot, a Training Day TV series, and Katherine Heigl’s Doubt, Limitless wasn’t on the list for fall.
When Limitless premiered, it was bringing in well over nine million total viewers and had a healthy rating in the 18-49 demographic. As time wore on, though, the ratings started falling (as ratings are wont to do). While the show continued to bring in a decent VOD audience, it just wasn’t competing all that well compared to CBS’ heaviest hitters, although it by no means was a total disaster. The Season 1 finale brought in 5.6 million total viewers in Live+ Same day ratings. The episode also did a 1.14 rating.
Again, those numbers aren’t great when compared to what shows like The Big Bang Theory or even Scorpion are doing on the network, but those would be numbers another channel could run with and do really well. We also already know that the creative team initially had a plan for Season 2 that would involve taking Brian away from the FBI and putting him on a new track elsewhere, but an injection in the finale made it possible for Brian to avoid the side effects of NZT permanently. There's a lot of directions a second season could go. More on that here.
Usually contract deals for the cast and crew have a finite deadline, so we should be hearing about where Limitless could be going sooner rather than later. We'll let you know if it finds a different home. In the meantime, you can find out what CBS has coming up this summer with our TV premiere schedule.
