‘Drop Dead Diva’ canceled by Lifetime after four seasons

When it comes to their scripted shows, it turns out that Lifetime has become rather merciless when it comes to their major decisions. First, there was the rather shocking announcement that “Army Wives” was going to be returning with Kim Delaney; and now, they have also made the stunning move to cancel “Drop Dead Diva” after four seasons.

When it comes to ratings, this move is not necessarily a complete surprise. The show was no the highest-performing program on their schedule, and the success of “The Client List,” “Dance Moms,” and some of their original movies has upped the expectations for what Lifetime has for their shows. (They also have a pretty rich development slate at the moment, which makes sense going along with their recent re-branding and makeover.) The showrunners tried to infuse new excitement in the show by booking Kim Kardashian for a guest arc, but the extra attention did not ultimately help.

However, what troubles us about this is something that we have always been against: canceling a show without giving its fans proper closure. If nothing else, doesn’t “Drop Dead Diva” at least deserve a two-hour finale to tie together all of the loose ends? According to Deadline, the show is being shopped to some other networks by the studio Sony Pictures TV, but given that this is an unknown we would have rather had a proper ending here with a hope of a continuation elsewhere.

When you are a network, the biggest risk that you run into when making a decision like this is that you can potentially alienate viewers and keep them from wanting to check out future shows. Fox experienced this in a hard way with “Firefly,” and CBS has also walked this tightrope at times.

What do you think about this surprising cancellation? If you want to check out some more news about the upcoming Lifetime schedule, be sure to visit the link here.

Photo: Lifetime