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ABC’s Forever may not be eternal, but the freshman drama is at least sticking around until the end of the season. Forever just received an order from the network for another nine episodes.
The drama stars Ioan Gruffudd as Dr. Henry Morgan, an immortal medical examiner. The pickup is a bit surprising considering the show’s ratings — the most recent episode had a very low 1.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 4.9 million viewers in the next-day numbers. But Forever does benefit very strongly from DVR, with the season averaging 7.6 million viewers and a 1.9 rating, with a recent episode spiking 82 percent thanks to time-shifted playback.
While Forever’s performance is considered below the line for a typical major network pickup, the line also declines every year. The decision should give hope to some similarly struggling shows — but not to fellow Tuesday night ABC freshman series Selfie. ABC has decided against ordering more episodes of the comedy, effectively canceling the series. More on Selfie‘s fate here.
Forever joins several other freshman shows that have made it to a second round of episodes this fall, including ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder and Black-ish; Fox’s Gotham; CBS’ Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans, Madam Secretary and Stalker; The CW’s The Flash and Jane the Virgin.
