The 13th and final episode of Season 3 of the American crime drama TV series “Graceland” was aired on the USA Network on September 17, 2015, that left a huge cliffhanger.
About two weeks later, showrunner Jeff Eastin announced that the network has decided not to renew the TV series for a fourth season, leaving loyal fans of the TV series distraught because the hanging questions left by the show during its Season 3 finale shall no longer be answered.
An insider disclosed that the reason why USA Network canceled the show was because of its poor ratings, which simply did not warrant a renewal, reports Variety.
According to the source, while the network was very pleased with the show creatively, its ratings said otherwise, so USA Network had to make a painful decision.
“Graceland” debuted as a summer series in 2013 and followed a group of undercover agents from various law enforcement agencies who lived together in a Southern Californian beach house, known as Graceland, details Release Date.
The TV series starred Aaron Tveit, Daniel Sunjata, Vanessa Ferlito, Manny Montana, Brandon Jay McLaren and Serinda Swan.
A top cable drama during its first season
When it premiered in 2013, “Graceland” debuted as one of the top cable dramas, and posted an average of 4.3 million viewers. But its viewership fell quite hard during Seasons 2 and 3, recording a drop of 30% in all categories.
Apart from the show’s poor ratings especially in the 18-49-year-old viewer demographics, the network has apparently decided to let the ax fall on “Graceland” because it does not own the TV series.
The move to cancel the series came after the network met with producer Fox 21 Television Studios where they discussed the future of the show.
Apparently, the network did not see any justification for keeping “Graceland” on air because they do not even own it. It was the same thing that the USA Network did to other shows in its roster including “Complications,” “White Collar,” and “Burn Notice.”
The reason why USA Network had a meeting with representatives of Fox 21 was because the latter has been a major supplier of content on the former. With the cancellation of “Graceland,” Fox 21 only has “Queen of the South” TV series on the USA Network.
USA Network’s move may also be an indication that it is moving towards all original content that is owned by the network.
Second-guessing the network wrong
The show’s executive producers were actually confident of a Season 4 renewal for “Graceland” that was why they have intentionally included cliffhangers during the Season 3 finale, to give fans and viewers something to look forward to in the next season.
Apparently, they second-guess the network wrong. The USA Network decided to look into the overall picture and saw that the figures were not as promising as it thought all along, thus making the tough decision to cancel the TV series.
For a while, “Graceland” actually has enough creative juice flowing through it to keep the network happy. That gave fans and producers of the TV series the likely hope that Season 4 was on the horizon.
According to a source from the USA Network, “Graceland” was a great show in terms of creativity. It had a successful run for three seasons but the ratings did not justify bringing it back from a financial perspective.
Days after its Season 3 finale, hopes were actually high that “Graceland” will be renewed for Season 4 and it seems that Jeff Eastin was also quite confident of a renewal which was the reason why he left a huge cliffhanger at the close of Season 3.
It was a terrible show.
It got no ratings for a very good reason: it was un-enjoyable!
Simple as that.
All talk of its “creativity” was just Pr hype and the public saw through it.