‘Red Band Society’ canceled further; efforts to find new home for Fox series fail

You have to give studio ABC Studios a little bit of credit at the moment. After all, they really seemed to try everything within their power to protect and save “Red Band Society” from a pretty depressing fate.

According to Deadline, the studio tried to make every effort over the past few weeks to keep the show alive on another network, mostly since they knew that the fan support was there, and they were believers in the show despite its low ratings on Fox. Unfortunately, their efforts were fruitless, and now the show will face its three-episode Saturday burnoff before walking into the sunset. The one silver lining for some of the cast is that there is enough time now for them to all re-enter pilot season, and find a new show that could use their talents in some way.

The only thing that the studio reportedly did not want to do was shift the show into summer. Why? According to the report, this would have come with lower licensing fees, and with the model that the show has in place with its large cast, that would not have worked well financially.

Unfortunately, this is just the sort of thing that happens sometimes. We feel like had it been as strong in the early going as it was near the end of its first ten episodes, this show could have been a big winner. Also, it may have fared better on a different network. Fox is not in a good place right now, especially when it comes to scripted programming. We’re not willing to judge “Empire” yet an episode in.