Don’t expect a Ten Days in the Valley season 2 renewal

Is Ten Days in the Valley renewed for a season 2? If you’ve been watching the Kyra Sedgwick series on weekends, we certainly would understand why you’d want to see more of the series. There is good work being done in the show by the cast and the writers, and we’d also say that there isn’t all that much creatively like it across network television.

Unfortunately, sometimes having an interesting story or a capable lead is rather meaningless to a show’s long-term success. There are so many other mitigating factors that can lead to a ratings downturn. With Ten Days in the Valley, the show suffered from the get-go from a number of different issues.

1. A premise that wasn’t easy to explain – The title’s already a tough one to begin with, and trying to explain the story in a 10-20 second promo was not exactly easy. If Ten Days in the Valley was on an FX or an AMC, maybe it would have more time to build up that audience. On network TV, however, simplicity is often key to mainstream success. This series did not have that.

2. A really difficult timeslot – ABC has struggled with Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern for ages. Shows like Revenge, Quantico, and now this one have all struggled to hold onto big audiences here. A part of that is due to NFL football in the fall, and another part of that is due to cable competition. There’s also the notion that many viewers with normal 9-to-5 jobs go to bed earlier on Sundays to get ready for work the next day. For some people out there, staying up late is not really an option … unless it’s for a show that they’re already addicted to and they can convince themselves to do it. It’s hard for a show that has to build an audience at that time to convince someone to watch long enough to become addicted.

3. Promotion – There really wasn’t all that much. We would’ve hit so much harder viewers who already knew and loved Sedgwick from her work on The Closer. We just don’t know how many of these same viewers are also watching ABC now.

The fate of Ten Days in the Valley

It’s not officially canceled; however, it’s almost guaranteed to be over after tonight’s final episodes. Ever since moving to Saturday we’ve seen it average somewhere between a 0.2 and a 0.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Even if the series was airing on The CW it would have a hard time staying put with these sort of numbers.

Will you miss Ten Days in the Valley? Share in the comments!

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