TNT announced today that their supernatural drama Proof starring Jennifer Beals will not return for a second season. The announcement does not come as a huge surprise, but it really could have gone either way. The series debuted to decent numbers back in June and even made it into the cable Top 25 for that week based on total viewers. But its numbers continued to to slip throughout its first season into what I refer to as the “ratings noise” levels (0.1 to 0.4 scores based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic). Or course most the original scripted shows on the cable channels appeared to be struggling this past Summer and shows like ABC Family’s Stitchers, MTV’s Scream, and Syfy’s Dark Matter did manage to earn renewals at the same or lower levels than what Proof was performing at. But these days it is harder and harder to gauge the health of shows like this because intangibles like international financing and partnerships as well as social network activity and targeted demographics all come into play. Apparently, though, if Proof had any of these factors in its court, they weren’t strong enough to convince TNT to keep the show going. I had considered the show’s chances pretty much a toss up, but since TNT took so long to make an announcement (it wrapped up in July) it seemed less and less likely that this one would come back.
There are still several more Summer shows waiting for word on their fates like The Whispers, Wayward Pines, and Defiance. You can see my rundown of those at this link.
What a shame that this series wasn’t given a second season, but as I feared the subject matter was a bit too controversial and far fetched for many people and the numbers just wasn’t there to support it.