Take Two canceled at ABC; season 2 being shopped elsewhere

Apparently, ABC decided that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was the perfect time to cancel Take Two — it’s the time when it will fall out of the news cycle the fastest and maybe the network is hoping that no one will notice. We noticed and to say we are salty about it is an understatement.

Let’s make it clear that we are not going to stop talking about it, either now or at some other point down the road. The biggest reason for the series’ cancellation at the moment is the same one that we’ve seen so many times before — low ratings. Yet, ABC didn’t exactly do the show any favors by putting it at a tough time for summer TV (Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern) following a difficult lead-in and then also having it be preempted a number of times in big markets for preseason football.

In other words, it never really had a chance to find a consistent following at the network. It’s hard to do that when viewers cannot watch week after week. We also do think that promotion could’ve been better, but really it just needed more opportunities for viewers to see it. Why ABC deciding to air The Proposal on Monday nights after The Bachelorette, knowing that this had so much better long-term promise makes zero sense to us.

Is there still hope for the future of Take Two? Potentially. According to TVLine, showrunners Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller are taking the show elsewhere and there is some interest — yet, there are no specific names at present of who the new suitor might be. We do think that it would make a good timeslot partner to Elementary over on CBS, and we could see a few cable networks being interesting fits. For example, TNT has aired a number of seasons of Marlowe and Miller’s former series Castle, and this is a format that they have a ton of experience with. This show could also inject some more old-school mystery fun into USA, a network that really used to put a ton of these shows on the air.

We do think that traditional network programming makes more sense than a streaming service like Netflix — these shows don’t really need to be binge-watched and can play out well in repeats for many years to come. What Take Two needs now more then anything is a real chance to hit the ground running. The first season got better and better as time went along so we certainly do have a hope that season 2 could do the same if given the opportunity. Rachel Bilson and Eddie Cibrian are compelling leads, the show had a strong supporting cast, and there were some really fun standalone cases throughout season 1.

Rest assured, this is a subject that we will map out and discuss further as we start to get some more information.

What do you think about Take Two being canceled over at ABC? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments!