FOX Makes 'Vanished' Vanish
'Justice' will get a pre-demise December tryout

November 17, 2006
Gale Harold, 'Vanished'
Gale Harold of 'Vanished'
Gale Harold's character is dead and so is "Vanished."

In a bit of coy misdirection, FOX announced late Thursday that the concluding episodes of "Vanished" will be available streaming OnDemand on the network's MySpace platforms. Available on TV? Not so much.

Instead, FOX will burn off four new episodes of "Justice" for the month of December. That drama has also reportedly ceased production already.

The unaired "Vanished" episodes will premiere on Fridays OnDemand, leaving viewers with the difficult choice between streaming FOX's elaborate cancelled kidnapping drama or NBC's elaborate cancelled kidnapping drama ("Kidnapped").

The "Vanished" finale will be available for streaming on Friday, Dec. 8 just in case anybody actually cares why the Stonecutters kidnapped Sara Collins in the first place.

The final new episode of "Vanished" will have aired last Friday (Nov. 10) to an audience of under 2.88 million viewers, which would even make it the fourth least watched program on The CW. That's not good.

For the season, "Vanished" averaged 6.5 million viewers, though it was averaging 7.45 million while it aired after "Prison Break" on Mondays pre-baseball. Gale Harold fans would like you to believe that the on-screen death of the show's leading man lead to the ratings collapse, though issues of quality and Friday night audience size were probably equally complicit.

What is OnDemand?