‘Taken’ Yanked From NBC Schedule, Will Return in Summer

NBC has delayed future Taken episodes until later this year, which poises it for possible cancellation.

On Tuesday, the network announced they would immediately be pulling the show from its Friday night slot, as Deadline reports.

New episodes will not resume until May 26. This means that the show’s remaining episodes will start airing Saturdays at 8 p.m. ET starting then.

In its usual space, NBC will expand its block of Dateline episodes. This means that two hours of Dateline will air each Friday night from 9-11 p.m. ET.

The show, which served as a prequel to the popular Taken film franchise, has been on the chopping block for cancellation in recent weeks.

The program averaged 2-3 million viewers each week and 0.3-0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This places it way behind CBS’ MacGyver and puts it in competition with FOX’s Masterchef Junior, who lagged behind in total ratings but ahead in the key demographic in recent ratings.

Bumping the show into the summertime and plugging into a Saturday night seems to set a death sentence for the show.

The show is currently in its second season. It has currently aired 11 of its 16 ordered episodes from season 2. If NBC pulls the plug, Taken‘s total episode count will be at only 24 episodes.

As expected, fans of the action drama were not pleased with the news. A handful of devoted fans took to Twitter to vent their frustrations at NBC for the move.

“How dare you NBC!” fan Lori Jewell wrote. “Taken is one of the best shows on your network with 3 million+ loyal, faithful fans, [and] you have the audacity to this! Shameful!”

Another fan added, “It makes no sense why NBC would rather play a ‘repeat’ Dateline episode instead of new Taken episodes. Let them finish it out on Friday. Jerk move.”

Photo Credit: NBC / Panagiotis Pantazidis