14 DAY TRIAL // The 1960s-set drama “The Playboy Club,” starring Eddie Cibrian, has officially become the first casualty of the fall season. NBC has pulled the plug on it after just 3 episodes, as interest in it continue to fall drastically, Entertainment Weekly reports.
It was meant to be a very ambitious project but it got off on the wrong footing months before the release, the movie-oriented publication says.
As such, the move to pull it off the air was not entirely unexpected, though it is a surprise it only made it 3 episodes.
“NBC’s biggest primetime gamble just became the first cancelled show of the season: The Playboy Club has been pulled from the network’s schedule,” EW informs.
“Playboy Club premiered to low ratings and then dropped for each of its three telecasts, with last night hitting only 3.4 million viewers and a 1.2 rating in the adult demo,” it further writes.
Even before confirmation of the cancelation came, those few who watched the show realized something was up.
“Sharp-eyed Playboy Club viewers got a hint last night something might have been up last night when NBC didn’t air a promo for a fourth episode,” says the same media outlet.
“Despite having relatively tame content, the show wasn’t helped by conservative group the Parents Television Council vehemently protesting the show,” adds EW.
Now that it’s been canceled, the PTC, who actively urged for a boycott, as we also informed you a while back, has released a statement saying it was pleased with the way things turned out over at NBC.
The Monday night slot left vacant by “The Playboy Club” will be filled by reruns of “Prime Suspect,” NBC’s new cop series.
For the time being, NBC hasn’t said anything about planning on releasing remaining episodes of the series at a later time, which most likely means it’s dead and buried for eternity.