‘A.D. The Bible Continues’ canceled; NBC will not air season 2

While in some ways “A.D. The Bible Continues” was always considered to be more of a miniseries for NBC than an actual show destined to go multiple seasons, we do still feel like there is a certain value today in reporting that the show is now officially kaput.

This news was first reported by Deadline, and it came as the follow-up to the History miniseries “The Bible” debuted to pretty strong numbers earlier in the spring. So what went south here by the time we made it to the end of the season? We feel like there are a number of key factors that played a role in what went down.

1. Airing new episodes opposite “Game of Thrones” and other heavy competition is never a good idea.

2. Most of NBC’s other programming ended in May, and shows that tend to continue onward into June tend for the most part to not fare particularly great.

3. Creatively, one of the real issues with this story is that after Jesus dies and his resurrected on Easter, it’s really hard to top that! One of the biggest moments of The Bible happened early in the season, and after that you are reliant more on the show itself to keep people around.

We do not think that this holds any particular long-term implications when it comes to other religious-themed programming on TV in the slightest. Just be sure to remember here that religious programming tends to typically fare pretty well in short doses, and with that in mind, there will be something else more than likely from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey in time. However, this does come after another project in “The Dovekeepers” was a ratings disappointment for CBS.

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