ABC's "Life on Mars" Canceled

Following the November slaughter of its sophomore dramas "Pushing Daisies," "Dirty Sexy Money" and "Eli Stone," the Alphabet net has pulled the plug on its freshman series "Life on Mars," too. The final, 17th episode will air April 1.

The US version of the same-titled UK time-traveling cop drama launched last fall in the troubled post-Grey's Anatomy slot on Thursday nights at 10pm, premiering to a decent audience of 11.33 million viewers with a solid 3.7 rating among adults 18-49.

Following the initial sampling, the show lost 3 million viewers, but remained stable at 8 million viewers (and a 2.6 demo rating).

Then the network decided to cancel the above-mentioned dramas and try to save Shonda Rhimes' medical series "Private Practice," by moving it next to its parent series "Grey's Anatomy."

For this reason, "Life on Mars" was moved to Wednesday nights at 10pm, replacing "Dirty Sexy Money" and leading out of a new season of "Lost."

But the network decided to wait for the return of "Lost," thus putting "Life on Mars" on a 2-month hiatus. When the show returned in late January 2009, it immediately lost an additional 2 million viewers.

A recent episode of the show bottomed out at 4.63 million viewers, pulling in a very weak 1.6 rating among adults 18-49.

That means "Life on Mars" did worse leading out of "Lost" than "Dirty Sexy Money" did leading out of "Private Practice" last fall.

For this reason, the show will end on April 1. A week later, ABC will premiere in its place new midseason drama "The Unusuals" about a female NYPD homicide division detective played by Amber Tamblyn ("The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants").

The producers of "Life on Mars" were allegedly given sufficient time to give its show a proper series finale.

'Life on Mars', 'Fringe' Leaked on Bit Torrent

Two of the most anticipated pilots this fall, FOX's "Fringe" from J.J. Abrams, the creator of "Lost," as well as the original pilot for ABC's adaptation of the British sci-fi/police drama "Life on Mars" are now available for anyone to download off the Internet.

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Every summer, a number of high-profile US pilots get onto the file-sharing service prior to their premiere in the fall.

Matt Le Blanc's failed NBC sitcom "Joey" (2004), FOX's action drama "Prison Break" (2005), Aaron Sorkin's NBC dramedy "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006) and ABC's fantasy procedural "Pushing Daisies" (2007) were just some of the many pilots available on the Internet in recent years.

This year, "Fringe" is one of the two hottest new shows from FOX. The net spent $10 million to produce the 2-hour pilot which premieres September 9.

FOX was said to be very careful not to mail out DVD screeners of its other buzzworthy series, Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse," which premieres in January 2009.

In related news, ABC honcho Steve McPherson says production on "Life on Mars" will go ahead as planned, despite reports to the contrary.

The original show runner David E. Kelley has left the series and some cast members have been let go. The series also moved production from L.A. to New York, but McPherson insists the scripts are ready to film.