NBC Boss: Fan 'Outcry' Brought 'Timeless' Back After Cancellation
It's aliiiiiive, thanks to the fans! "Timeless" was canceled a few days ago, but after viewers (including Leslie Jones and William Shatner) joined the show creators to say they were "surprised and upset," NBC made the extremely rare move to un-cancel the show. So now "Timeless" will return for a second season on the network. See? Sometimes an "outcry" can turn back time.
NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt explained the cancellation-and-renewal decision to reporters (via Entertainment Weekly):
"There was a moment earlier in the week where we just thought, 'We have all these shows that are coming back and these new shows and maybe there's not room for Timeless and we decided to move on from it. And then woke up the next morning, all of us, and heard from fans and the outcry and we thought, 'Well, let's figure out how to try to bring it back.' We went back to the drawing board in every way with our partners, with Sony, and I'm happy to say we were able to figure out a way to bring it back. We love the show creatively. Nothing would make us happier than to see the audience grow."
Nice. Because it's a time travel show, some fans thought maybe it was all a big marketing ploy to go back in time and reverse the cancellation. But Greenblatt shot that down:
"I wish we were that clever in the middle of scheduling things. Maybe we'll do that with some other shows, so keep your eyes peeled. We would never do that to the creators of the show. That didn't happen, and they weren't in on it. These things are really tricky in negotiations. It just happened the way it happened. I'm happy it happened this way as opposed to the other, where we pick up a show and two days later and we cancel it."
This just shows that a fan movement can sometimes save a TV show. (Although, let's be honest, sometimes it doesn't do a dang thing.) Good for NBC for listening to the response. Now it's the job of the viewers to back up that "outcry" and bring more friends to watch "Timeless" Season 2, whenever it premieres in 2018.
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