NBC's Crossbones had two-time Academy Award nominee John Malkovich as Blackbeard and pirating adventures, but evidently that did not lead to enough to generate the audience the network was looking for.

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On Thursday, TV Line announced that the last two episodes of Crossbones will air the same night, and also that night will be a Saturday.

While airing in the summer is not the sign of impending doom that it used to be under the old television model, airing on Saturday still remains pretty much a sign of the end, and that is very much the case here. Instead of airing at 10:00 p.m. on Friday as Crossbones has this season, the last two episodes will air on August 2, which the old time slot being filled by various salacious news programs.

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Crossbones seemed to have promise when it was announced, particularly with Malkovich's presence on the show. It was ordered direct-to-series for 10 episodes, but was then pushed to midseason, then to summer, and now it is being pushed off the air having aired only nine episodes. While the show has its fan base, as all shows do, it was not enough to justify the finances that have gone into making a show about pirates, even if the production values were not exactly on the level of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. While Malkovich will land on his feet, somebody such as Richard Coyle, who played Tom Lowe the man assigned to kill Blackbeard, will likely view this as more of a blow. Fans of Crossbones better make some time on Saturday. The last two episodes, entitled "Crossbones" and "Blackbeard," begin at 8:00 p.m.

Tags: Crossbones television nbc John Malkovich