The first cut is the deepest.
TV fans, we have the first official casualty of the 2015 fall season. Although networks have chopped episode orders for freshman flops Minority Report, The Player and Blood and Oil, they've yet to yank any from the schedule—until now. ABC has given serial killer drama Wicked City the ax after just three episodes, E! News has confirmed.
Moment of silence for the short-lived series. OK, back to business.
ABC will air repeats of Shark Tank in the 10 p.m. hour on Tuesdays beginning Nov. 17, and production on Wicked City will conclude after episode eight, which is currently shooting.
Up against Chicago Fire and fellow new drama Limitless, Wicked City, which starred Jeremy Sisto, Ed Westwick and Erika Christensen, managed to draw just 1.7 million viewers and a 0.4 rating among adults 18-49 in its third week. That's half of what The CW's The Flash drew in the 8 p.m. hour.
The 1980s-set drama followed two detectives (Sisto, Gabriel Luna) hunting down a pair of dating serial killers (Westwick and Christensen) terrorizing the Sunset Strip.
While not many shows have taken off this season, networks have not actually canceled any of them. Instead, they've opted to chop the new shows' episode orders instead. In past years, Manhattan Love Story and Lucky 7 had been pulled from the schedule by this point (in the fourth and first weeks of October, respectively). This year, it took two full months for an official cancellation.