Seriously why was this show canceled?

The main factor in all tv cancellations is ratings--there simply weren't enough people watching to convince NBC to keep it. This was compounded by the fact that, at that time, NBC was looking to clear five hours of primetime programming so they could run Jay Leno's show at 10pm, Mon-Fri. If this hadn't been the case, perhaps Life would have been renewed.

At any rate, it had little to do with the quality of the second season. Some people have quibbles about certain aspects of Season 2, especially several episodes in the second half of the season. But, personally, I enjoyed Season 2 as much as the first one, and the final two episodes were excellent.

The writers apparently knew that cancellation was possible, so they wrapped up enough of the plot to provide a satisfactory, and even thrilling, conclusion. I highly recommend that you watch the second season.

A couple of things killed it:

- The writer's strike during season 1 meant it stumbled into season 2 limping.
- Sarah Shahi's pregnancy. She and Damien had a real chemistry, and her absence made things uncertain.
- And then Jay Leno wanted a 1-hour show five nights a week at 10pm. Five hours of programming had to go away. Considering the points above, Life didn't survive.

I would honestly say if you want to be angry at anyone about this, it's Leno for his big fat ego.

All things point to Leno here. I never liked him but I would occasionally watch his show if there was a guest I wanted to see. Ever since Life was cancelled I refuse to watch anything with Leno in it

It is a great show. It doesn't blow you away. But what are the good recent NBC dramas? Damian Lewis is such a compelling figure. You are just waiting for him
to crack you up or surprise you.

It had a couple of flaws though. Damian Lewis always surprised you with his lines but each episode was pretty formulaic. Each episode starts with someone dead and then Charlie and team try to find the killer. Even when Charlie was shot, he went right back to work to find that killer. They could have mixed it up and had a whole episode dealing with who shot him. But no, they never went away from their script.

Life was kind of monotone but they probably could have gone a lot deeper especially with the conspiracy about why he was convicted.

Sarah Shahi got pregnant. She had to drop out of the cast when her pregnancy no longer could be gotten around. The show floundered without her and soon was cancelled.

Surprisingly, while Damian Lewis was banished to cable-land Ms. Shahi's career only bloomed brighter after **Life**. Hollywood generally isn't so forgiving.


["We have all strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others./"]
--La Rochefoucault

as I understand it

Season 1 was ordered Pre-Writers strike...
-- it did Passably well in the ratings. Had the writers Not been striking NBC likely would Not have even completed airing all of season 1.

the timing of the strike also meant that the Core Cast had not signed on to new shows yet, so NBC renewed the show, as they lacked programming for the fall08

Season 2 ran into re-writes due to Shahi getting Pregnant which despite some other claims was more likely due to being a Horny 'nearlywed', and assuming the show wouldn't get picked up rather than being unprofessional/demanding (season one was only 11 episodes all of which were done airing by early December
-- The Strike ran from Nov'07-Feb 08... by this timeline alone NBC COULDN'T have ordered season 2 until over 2 months after season one concluded Airing, and who knows how long after Production had wrapped... and likely waited even longer still

when it came time to consider season 3, NBC had committed to Giving up FIVE HOURS of prime Time TV to the new Leno show because they knew NOT locking Him down in some way (what ever you think of Jay) would result in Him going somewhere else and likely Beating Conan in the Ratings... That it was a essentially an Early Tonight Clone was NBC's choice based on assorted internal factors

-- with Less room on the schedule Fewer Shows got Renewed... it's probably no coincidence that the 'Leno Experiment' Forced Law & Order from it's 10/9C timeslot and resulting in season 20 Being it's last (although CSI: NY chasing it off of Wednesday Nights a few seasons Before didn't help

I didn't even know the show existed until long after it was canceled. Same goes for Leverage, but at least I heard about Leverage soon after it was canceled. Maybe if they'd promote the shows better then more people would watch. It's hard to watch something you don't know exists. I think I found out about Life on the Fairly Legal board. Life was much better than Fairly Legal. Had I known about the show then I would've been watching it. No one I knew had even heard of it even though they watch TV all the time and I ended up introducing them to it.

I know I am jumping on this thread a little late and I have already voiced some of my thoughts in another thread but wanted to add some more.

First, Sarah's pregnancy did cause some rewrites and messed with the chemistry of the show. But that didn't really happen until the 16th episode of season two; she only appeared for a few minutes that episode. And the ratings by that point were already doing poorly.

I had been following the show's ratings, along with those of Chuck, on the TvByTheNumbers website hoping to see an improvement. I don't believe that the ratings got bad enough over the course of the final 6 episodes that NBC pulled the plug for that reason alone. The decision was made based on the season as a whole not doing well in the Neilsen's. Over the course of the whole season the show only averaged 4.2 million viewers with a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demo. And NBC had to free-up enough time slots for the 5 hours of the failed Leno experiment which required them to cancel 5 shows. Unfortunately, that included Life and the also-excellent Southland. Lucky for Southland fans NBC had canceled it after they had ordered the second season which allowed TNT to pick up those episodes and retool it for their network.

Talk about NBC ratings then brings me to the final point - Life was canceled because it was on NBC. My explanation is that NBC, by 2008/2009 if not earlier, was known for getting poor ratings overall; CBS was the ratings juggernaut. People new this and I know those who actively avoided watching any new shows on NBC as they expected them to be canceled. I would also say that if Life had been on CBS instead it probably would have got at least a 3rd season and I am not the only one to say that.