J. August Richards

TNT Cancels Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Raising the Bar

Anybody wanna hire Zack Morris for a TV show or a Saved by the Bell reunion movie? Because he’s free...

Sources confirm to us exclusively that TNT is not renewing the Mark-Paul Gosselaar legal drama Raising the Bar for a third season. A rep for the network says, "Everyone at TNT had a great experience working on Raising the Bar with Steven Bochco and the rest of the show’s terrific cast and crew. We’re proud of the series and appreciate the efforts of all of the creative people who were involved. Unfortunately, ratings for Raising the Bar’s second season did not reach the levels required for TNT to renew the series."

TNT has not yet scheduled the three remaining unaired episodes of the series about a group of New York City public defenders and city district attorneys who studied law together and now face off in the courtroom.

Raising the Bar premiered to 7.7 million viewers last fall, but the second-season premiere was down to 3.6 million, which was less than half the viewership of lead-in The Closer. Ratings performance through the second season was lackluster at best, and the by-the-numbers plots never received much critical acclaim. Raising the Bar costarred Malcolm in the Middle mom Jane Kaczmarek, Angel alum J. August Richards and Melissa Sagemiller.

Although Raising the Bar apparently wasn’t working for the network, TNT continues to aggressively program broadcast-competitive hourlong dramas. TNT recently picked up NBC castoff Southland and earlier this year renewed Jada Pinkett Smith’s nursing series Hawthorne. The final episodes of superhit The Closer’s fifth season are scheduled to air throughout this month. (No word yet on a renewal, but given the ratings, if star Kyra Sedgwick and creator James Duff are game, you have to believe it’ll happen.) Caper series Leverage has also been renewed by the network, while the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced undercover-cop series Dark Blue, starring Dylan McDermott, remains in limbo. The low-rated Holly Hunter star vehicle Saving Grace has been scheduled to air its final episodes next summer.

Are you guys bummed about the end of Raising the Bar or just counting the minutes until Christian Kane comes back with more Leverage?