Seven not renewing Wild Boys
Seven's ambitious colonial drama has been shot at just 13 episodes, following disappointing ratings.
- Published by David Knox
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The Seven Network is not renewing its latest drama Wild Boys for 2012.
The ambitious colonial drama starring Daniel MacPherson, Zoe Ventoura, Michael Dorman, David Field, Nathaniel Dean and Jeremy Sims will end with 13 episodes.
The decision not to pursue a second season comes as ratings for the show hover around 900,000 despite a successful launch of 1.67m viewers.
A Seven spokesman said: “We are very proud to have been able to bring Wild Boys to the screen. The show premiered to strong audience figures, which stayed with the show for a number of weeks. However, those numbers didn’t hold with the show and regrettably have made the decision not to commission series 2.”
The period drama was full of promise with handsome production values, but reviews for the show were tepid.
The turnaround comes despite Seven promising the show would be part of its 2012 programming at its launch in September.
Julie McGauran,who produced the series with Sarah Smith, was recently announced as joining Seven’s drama department with John Holmes and Bevan Lee.
Seven’s drama slate for 2012 now includes Packed to the Rafters, Winners and Losers, Home and Away and a new series, A Place to Call Home.
Amended.
68 Responses
bad writing killed this show it had a heap of potential as a writer myself it makes me mad that seven keeps everything in-house they need to expand their pool and not hire people to write to formula and actually ask them to come up with better characters and storylines. wild boys could have been so much better it is a huge shame.
Koverstreet, your, judgement on A Place to Call Home can only be based on the title as no other details have been released.
Just shows how different Channels 7 and 10 are when it comes to standards and actually producing something good that people want to watch.
Offspring didn’t do any better than Wild boys yet it kept getting renewed time and time again to the amazement of the rest of us who couldn’t stand the show whereas Channel 7 realised Wild Boys wasn’t something that appealed to the masses and didn’t get into peoples’ psyches’ and rightly so got rid of it to focus on other things and hopefully make something that rates and that we viewers do want.
Just shows Channel 7 has got standards whereas Channel 10 hasn’t.
This is indeed a shame. While I was no fan of the show – too ‘safe’, cliched and ‘dumbed down’ (well, it Is for Australians I suppose) – it was a period piece and lord knows we need more adventurous productions and programming in this country.
I believe if they had have made it less ‘7.30 slot’ and more ‘event’ it would have worked – with better scripts, acting etc.
All of Seven’s dramas listed look like variations of each other – parochial, urban, contemporary, and – above all – banal. Just like politicians, you get the TV you deserve – and Australian TV on the whole is absolute crap. And I work in it!!!
It’s interesting to note (as I’ve heard from a good source) that most of the money was spent on the first couple of episode blocks – lots of action, explosions and set pieces etc. – after that, everything was trimmed. Perhaps people really do notice when Producers try to hoodwink them. You have to deliver the series you promise – and keep on doing it or people drift away.
But, good on Seven for taking a punt – you just didn’t do it as well as you should have.
900.000 is low for Seven, but a high for Ten.
Didn’t they say they would already bring it back for a second season next year in their 2012 programming announcements? Then again Ten said the same with 6:30 with George Negus and look what happened there.
A shame that, rightly or wrongly, those that commission the series give it one chance in one timeslot that only they get to pick.
Maybe, just maybe, they got that part wrong?
900k in these multi ch days isn’t too bad. A shame as the premise sounded interesting but as soon as I saw Daniel Mac that was it for me. It turned out cheesy when it could have been a classic
And oh my but does a place to call home sound cheesy or what? Seven don’t make dramas like they used to ie Cop shop,a country practice,sons & daughters et al that are all time classics. These days their dramas are drivel.
the only show I like has been axed and that’s Rush!!!
can we please do ratings at our house where do they get there figures from we are a normal family with kids and love watching wild boys give me the controls and let normal people do ratings wat a joke
Not a good start for Julie McGauran. You could probably add this to the list of flops she’s been involved in.
I thought this show actually got better audience figures than it deserved. Played it way too safe, and was poorly written
It’s a shame. This show did have potential but the storylines were just very bare.
Seemed to be the same thing week in week out with nothing really developing.
How many times can DMac run from the cops and get away?
This should have been an 8.30 show and sexed up a bit
I thought it was Julie McGauran going to Seven, not Sarah Smith.
Maybe this show needed to be more hard hitter like Deadwood and shown later in the night? I wasn’t to like the show but after the pilot lost interest even though I have kept recording it. Might watch the rest one day, maybe over the summer break.
I agree that Australia needs to have shorter series, like they do in the UK and on cable in the US, that said 13 is quite short compared to the 22 ep norm for most top shows coming out of the US.
it was worth the try on something a bit different but 1 season is enough. atleast it goes out with some dignity and decent ratings instead of totally bombing out in a second season.
i’d guess the business model of this show also had an impact on this decision. all other 7 dramas are in-house so Wild Boys would of had to over-compensate with high ratings, which it didn’t get. Interestingly the fact it is out-of-house means, unlike All Saints and City Homicide, there is chance southern star could take their business to ten who need the drama points and have renewed shows with much lower ratings.
It’s a luxury that Seven can axe a drama that has an audience of 900k when Ten renews dramas with an audience of 600k.
Meh. No great loss.
Whilst I enjoyed the first few eps (and plan to go for a drive around the areas used for location shots in weeks to come), the show started to falter with some lame dialogue and repetitive plot holes.
Production values were outstanding. the acting from the leads and guests was always beyond reproach – so much better than the Melbourne based City Homicide – but, about 3 eps ago, I couldn’t see this series lasting.
A question – spokesperson inferred the 13 weeks as Season 1 …”regrettably (7 has) made the decision not to commission series 2.”
Does this mean we can now expect every 7 based series to run for 13 weeks a season?
I, for one, would welcome the move.
I was so excited for this show. It was something different I was hoping for some gritty period drama to be our version of Deadwood. Then they cast Daniel Macpherson and thought the acting was going to be below par, then came the promos which looked cheesy, then they announced the timeslot and rating which meant it was going to be some soft kid friendly adventure soapy type show. All my excitement went, watched the first episode and everything I dreaded was true. The show was crap. Good on them for trying something different, they had the right pitch just stuffed up everything after that.
It seemed obvious they would soon run out of stories somewhere during episode one.
900,000 would be a hit on Nine or Ten.
This is a classic example of why some shows should only have 6-8 episodes per season. After the second ep it was clear this show was gonna drag things out as much as possible and I never watched again..
Wonder what Zoe will do now?
I don’t believe Seven when they say Packed to the Rafters is part of their 2012 line up, when it was barely shown in 2011! I bet the remaining 5 episodes will be called the series premier and then they’ll cut to W&L, which is arguably the worst show this year.