ABC Benches Flash Forward

I recently told you that ABC would temporarily be stopping production on Flash Forward for a week, but now EW.com says the series is taking a much longer break than that—three months to be exact!

The drama about a global blackout that left people with a vision of their futures (starring Argentinean actress Sonya Walger) plans to return with new episodes in March 2010, following the Olympics, not in January as previously reported.

Fans of the series found out about Flash Forward’s extended hiatus during Thursday's episode, when a promo ABC aired revealed the show would not be returning in January as expected, but rather on March 4. The freshman drama has been plagued by problems for the last 2 months. In October, one of the show’s Executive Producers left the series, and ratings for the show have been on a steady decline over the last few weeks. After premiering to an impressive 12.4 million viewers on Sept. 24, the show saw its ratings drop to 8 million viewers two weeks ago. Matters got worse when last week's fall finale episode was watched by only 7.3 million people.

The decision to bench Flash Forward is likely the result of both of these problems, as well as ABC’s fear that airing the series during the Olympics (which will air on NBC) could lead to even lower ratings for the show and put it at risk for cancellation.

If there’s any good news for the show’s fans, it’s that the time off will give Flash Forward show runner David S. Goyer time to try and fix the things that are wrong with the show. Even better, when the show returns in March, it will air its remaining episodes without interruption (i.e. no repeats!) from March through May (so you’ll definitely get your fix during Spring)!

Flash Forward isn’t the only show taking a long hiatus during this TV season—ABC’s sci-fi drama V is also taking 4 months off, as is FOX’s Glee.

Do you watch Flash Forward? Are you sad that it’s going on such a long hiatus? Dish in the comments!