NBC has officially canceled freshman drama Do No Harm after just two episodes. And the only surprising part of this news is that it took this long. For the immediate future, NBC has scheduled repeats of Law and Order: SVU to run Thursdays at 10pm.
Do No Harm premiered with record-breaking low numbers. It had the lowest premiere ever among the four major networks in the coveted 18-49 demographic, and the second episode dropped even lower.

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The Jekyll and Hyde drama began with just 3.12 million viewers and, in its second week, it dropped to 2.21 million. Those are phenomenally low numbers, far worse than Awake, Animal Practice or any of NBC's other recent notable failures.

Do No Harm's quick cancellation comes at a time when NBC is in particularly bad shape. It's other new mid-season drama, Deception, isn't fairing much better on Monday nights and the season 2 premiere of Smash was down considerably from season 1. Even Thursday night's season 4 premiere of Community was actually down 50,000 viewers from its season 3 premiere.

Things are also bad with the shows that are off season with today's other big news that star Christina Applegate is leaving Up All Night, leaving that show's future up in the air. Along with the final seasons of The Office and 30 Rock, it spells bad news for the network's comedy line-up.

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I'm sure right now March can't come fast enough for NBC. That's when it's big freshman hit, Revolution, returns, as well as its only real ratings juggernaut, The Voice. March will also bring the All-Stars season of The Celebrity Apprentice and the return of Grimm to Friday nights, which always pulls in respectable numbers.

But until then there is very little for NBC to be happy about and its ratings woes and behind-the-scenes catastrophes just keep piling up.


(Image courtesy of NBC)