We saw it happen with Jericho. After being canceled by CBS in the Spring of 2007, fans of Jericho launched a successful campaign to bring the series back. Unfortunately, it ended up being a relatively poor decision for CBS, as Jericho’s return brought less-than-mediocre ratings and now the series is gone for good. However, Jericho’s resurrection last year has given hope to all fans of canceled series. The latest of these is Moonlight. The Moonlight situation is pretty similar to what Jericho’s was last year. Both are genre series, both on CBS and both were canceled after a full first season. Moonlight has some rabid fans, and they’ve been working all angles since CBS announced that the show would not be returning to next season. The good news: Moonlight may not be completely dead just yet.
While the networks have all cemented their Fall schedules, the word is that Moonlight executive producer Joel Silver is shopping Moonlight to various cable channels. The other possibility for Moonlight could be a move to The CW. The CW is a struggling network, and has been losing money for a couple of years. A lot of money. For some of the more vocal Moonlight fans, the theory goes like this: If Moonlight and its 8 million average viewers head to The CW, Moonlight will instantly become of that networks’ highly rated series. In theory, that sounds great. In practice, it doesn’t hold up. You can’t assume that all the CBS viewers will make the leap to CW if a move were to occur – CBS, as a successful network, does a better job at advertising and getting the word out about its own shows. If Moonlight were to go to The CW, you can expect viewership to drop considerably.
The irony is that Jericho’s resurrection will likely hurt Moonlight’s attempt to reemerge out of cancellation. Jericho coming back was a good story, but it ended poorly, and you can be sure that CBS learned its lesson. It’s hard to imagine CBS bringing any series back from the dead any time soon.
It’s always possible for Moonlight to pop up on a cable channel, but it’s probably unlikely. The simple truth is that, barring some unforeseen circumstances, Moonlight is finished for good. Like the CBS executives have stated, Moonlight’s cancellation was purely a business decision. Don’t take it personal, fans.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source: Wall Street Journal, E!
(Image Courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
