Having been moved from a prime location on Thursday to Saturday night and having never drawn significant ratings in either location, “Harper’s Island” reportedly has no chance of scoring a second season.
News on the pessimistic “Harper’s Island” fate comes days after the show completed its thirteen episode run with a finale that, despite sparking intense discussion about the numerous plotholes and illogical story choices, entertained the passionate fanbase, according to most feedback and commentary pieces.
The show generated significant buzz prior to its premiere, yet while the premiere itself posted solid numbers this spring, the viewership quickly faded. The poor rating performance of the show is likely an inherent consequence of its design–it was essentially a “cheesy horror movie with depth” in the sense that while it relied on a lot of horror/suspense cliches, contrived scenarios and shallow dialogue, it had thirteen hours to develop a more intricate storyline with legitimate characters. Unfortunately, because early viewers and critics saw the shallow horror aspect of the first hour or two without getting a sense of the show’s underlying ability to engage audiences, they dismissed it as an inadequate television drama.
The fact that the show, positioned as a thirteen-hour miniseries, was able to develop a loyal cult following indicates that it ultimately provided entertainment over the long-term.
Most interesting regarding the story of CBS being unlikely to order a second season of the series is the fact that many of the show’s most loyal fans were not even aware that more episodes were a possibility. All initial hype for “Harper’s Island” claimed that it was to be a one-time, thirteen-part, open-and-shut mini-series. It had never been definitively made clear that, as per Entertainment Weekly’s report, CBS once viewed “Island” as a scripted counterpart to “Survivor”–it would return every so often with a new cast of characters in a new environment. It ultimately, does not matter, though, as the show will not be continuing.
“Harper’s Island,” which premiered this April, followed a group of characters attending a wedding on Harper’s Island, a beautiful and quiet location in the Pacific Northwest. Having been marred by a serial killer’s rampage seven years prior, the island would soon become home to another tragedy–one by one, the wedding guests would be killed off (possibly by someone in attendance) until the final reveal (at which point few characters would still be alive).
