NBC pulls 'Kings' from Sundays

NBC is replacing freshman drama Kings on Sunday nights, yanking the struggling allegorical series after four episodes.

Kings will be swapped out for another hour of Dateline, which will now run for two hours starting at 7 p.m.

Sunday's Kings episode was seen by 3.6 million viewers and received a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49. Yet Dateline had a 1.5 rating in its half hour leading into Kings. NBC suspects an expanded Dateline will provide a better lead-in for 9 p.m.'s Celebrity Apprentice, which has seen some audience erosion in recent weeks that might be attributed to Kings.

The remaining eight episodes of Kings will air on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. starting April 18.

The situation is a shame because, as nearly every TV critic pointed out, NBC took a chance here on an imaginative idea with a strong cast. Kings, which retold the story of King David in modern times, wasn't another police procedural, it wasn't a cynical programming move. Some may harp on NBC for airing Kings on Sundays at 8 p.m. -- it's a weak slot for the network -- but if the network had misjudged the show and it was truly effective its ratings would not have sunk week to week.

Incidentally, over on iTunes, the most-recent episode of Kings currently ranks as the most-downloaded TV show.