When the law enforcer-residents of the sequestered beach house in Southern California turned south during the finale of Season 3 of the American crime drama TV series “Graceland” on the USA Network, the show actually left a huge cliffhanger which can only be answered by a fourth season.
Unfortunately for the TV series, the network decided not to renew the show for Season 4, leaving the ultimate conclusion of “Graceland” hanging and giving viewers all kinds of theories and speculations on how everything would end.
It was actually “Graceland” executive producer Jeff Eastin who announced on October 1 on Twitter the bad news that the TV series is no more. He also said his thanks to the show’s best cast, crew, and fans in television in the same tweet, notes the Examiner.com.
The show’s official cancellation comes less than two weeks after “Graceland” had its Season 3 finale on September 17, which apparently drew less than one million viewers.
It was quite easy for the USA Network to decide on the cancellation of the show as the 13-episode of Season 3 of “Graceland” averaged only 848,000 viewers per episode, which is way below its performance during its first two seasons and also below the expectations of the network in terms of viewership and ratings.
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.
False hopes
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 is the reason why he left a huge cliffhanger at the close of Season 3.
Unfortunately, those hopes proved to be false as the USA Network decided the fate of the show based on its commercial value. “Graceland” did fairly well with an average of 1.7 million viewers every week, 784,000 of those viewers were from the highly sought-after adults segment, 18 to 49 years old demographic, cites the Latin Post.
“Graceland” had enough creative juice flowing through it, for the most part, to keep USA Network happy. That actually gave fans and producers alike the high hopes that Season 4 for “Graceland” was on the horizon.
The move to cancel “Graceland” came after USA Network met with Fox21. Apparently, there was a breakdown in the future of the show, it has officially been cancelled. But there is no official word from the network why the show was not renewed whether it was because of a contract or rating issue. However, many are saying that it was more of a rating issue.
A big gamble
Leaving a huge cliffhanger during the Season 3 finale of “Graceland” is a big gamble on the part of the producers of the TV series because should the network does not decide to renew the show for a fourth season, and no other network or streaming service decides to rescue it from cancellation, they will only draw the frustration of the fans, the way it happened to “Constantine” on The CW, and “The Following” on Fox this year.
The Season 3 finale showed ICE Agent Dale Jakes, played by Brandon Jay McLaren, getting into a fight with FBI Agent Jose ‘Johnny’ Tuturro, played by Manny Montana, and then taking the $9 million loot and leaves with Courtney.
While it was not surprising to say the least, Jake has apparently turned south. But it was not just Jake because soon after, Paul Briggs, played by Daniel Sunjata, urged Sean Logan, played by Lawrence Gilliard Jr., to sign a Homeland Security report to make sure that Martun Sarkissian, played by Peter Stormare, will rot in jail.