NBC officially passes on ‘Mockingbird Lane,’ leaves ‘Munsters’ reboot on the curb

For those of you hoping that NBC would be getting a little bit creepier with the permanent addition of “Mockingbird Lane,” you are probably feeling a little bit disappointed at this given moment. After a more-than-tumultuous production cycle, which included the network reading multiple scripts and requesting more changes than we can count, it has now been confirmed that the project (which was designed to be a re-telling of “The Munsters” in the style similar to Bryan Fuller’s recent hit “Pushing Daisies”) is officially dead in the water. It was actually Fuller himself who confirmed the news, as he took to his Twitter following Christmas to hand down the message:

“I tweet with a heavy heart … NBC not moving forward with #MockingbirdLane. From producers and cast, thank you all for enthusiasm and support.”

So is this the best decision for the network to make? It’s debatable at the moment. The good news for the special from earlier this fall was that it scored a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is higher than the NBC average Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. In addition to that, the show also boosted “Grimm” to one of its best live ratings ever in a 1.9. The bad news? “Mockingbird Lane” only posted a 1.5 despite a decent amount of promotion the week leading up to it, and with it airing at a time in Halloween where the stars were aligned for it to become at least a moderate hit in the ratings. We said it at the time, and we stick to it: had the special scored a 2.0 rating, it’s almost a certainty that negative buzz would have been irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and it would have been back on the air.

Do you wish that this show had gotten more of an actual chance to find its footing on TV? If you want to read more on the show’s troubled production, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: NBC