Touch renewed for second season

Touch Kiefer Sutherland promo pic

FOX has officially picked up Kiefer Sutherland’s new series Touch for a second season. It’s currently unknown whether it will air during mid-season again or be given a full 22 episode season order. I assume we’ll find out more details in the next few days at FOX’s upfront presentation.

The series has been renewed despite mediocre ratings. After having a successful premiere with 12.01 million viewers, ratings continued to drop every week down to a series low 6.43 million by the seventh episode.

Congratulations to Kiefer Sutherland, Marci Michelle, Nicole Burke, and all of the other former 24 crew who work on Touch. Former 24 director Jon Cassar’s episode airs tomorrow night on FOX.

Source Deadline

18 Comments

Comments Closed
Whilst congrats all round are due the ‘Touch’ production team, if the ratings continue to slide or remain mediocre, the chances of a third season are slim, FOX are probably correct in giving this series a full season to blossom and see how the ratings pan out…

Which brings me to my main point; that being with this news, we can kiss bye-bye to Jack Bauer’s big screen adventure until at least early 2014, as even if they reconcile their differences over budget/salary with FOX and production begins next spring, there’s no way the ’24’ movie will be released up against the ‘Hunger Games’ sequel ‘Catching Fire’ and the Roland Emmerich-directed ‘White House Down’, both of which will be big-budget affairs and are released in November 2013, so a 2014 release for ’24’ is more likely… the problem with that is it will have been four whole years since the series ended, and will there still be an audience large and passionate enough about all things Bauer to justify a $40m budget?

Terrible news. If it wasn’t for American Idol as a lead-in, the show would have been cancelled alongside Alcatraz and The Finder. Why in God’s name did Fox have to reschedule the one show it shouldn’t have? I can’t comprehend Kiefer’s willingness to continue this awful show at the cost of postponing the 24 movie. Doesn’t he realize that desire and audience fades as time goes on? Which is exactly why the 24 movie is less likely to be made, and the people who long for Jack Bauer continue to wait miserably.

Well if Kiefer Sutherland wasn’t committed to do another tv show, pre production of the movie would have started sometime this month. But instead two years wasted so he can star in a mediocre television show in my opinion. His main priority was to make the 24 movie a reality, not talking about hoping to make the movie.

RorshachLives!
May 10, 2012 at 12:48 am
The time to have shot and released the ’24’ movie in order to have capitalized on maximum interest from the cinema-going audience at large was this very year, 2012; they had a finished script that Kiefer said was “amazing”, a potential director in Antoine Fuqua, a solid window of about thirteen weeks to get the film shot, and a tight-but-still-achievable schedule to get the film ready for a probable late November release, and what happened… Fox happened by insisting on a totally insufficient and just plain insulting $30million budget, knowing full well that Imagine Entertainment needed a little over $40million at bare minimum to do the movie right, it’s Fox’s fault the ’24’ movie isn’t being shot as we speak, and it’ll be Fox’s fault if the eventual ’24’ movie fails to catch on at the box-office because too much time was allowed to elapse between the series’ end and release of the feature film… PERIOD!

Although I’m happy to see the “24 family” finding new success, I’m puzzled as to why Fox renewed this show.

Touch started off well and then quickly nosedived in viewership within the first handful of episodes. It’s had a massive advertising campaign (World Series commercials etc) but very little word of mouth, critical reaction is mixed at best, it’s a very expensive show, and it’s already been given the best possible lead-in (American Idol, FOX’s number one show).

Unlike a lot of other shows which had a slow start but then gradually built up an audience, I feel like this series already had its chance and blew it. I’m not sure what else they can do to improve ratings at this point.

I agree that it would’ve been in everyones best interests to relaunch “24” as a movie franchise instead.

TOUCH is one of the dullest shows on television. I think Fox only renewed it to save both Kiefer and themselves the embarrassment. For Kiefer it looks bad if his post-24 career can’t take off, and for Fox it looks bad if they cancel EVERY new drama from last season. This renewal is more about saving face than anything else.

I dunno, I like Touch. It’s got some intriguing over-arching plot elements and I’m looking forward to see where the kid goes.

That being said, I don’t like it more than a 24 film. :P

Northern Star
May 10, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Well cheerio to seeing Jack Bauer on the big screen anytime soon, screw you very much 20th Century Fox, first you won’t give the ’24’ movie a decent budget, then you renew a series whose ratings have seriously cratered, thereby postponing the ’24’ movie even further, well done guys, round of applause everyone…

And the best time to release a ’24’ movie (if you’ll allow me to disagree with you,
RorshachLives!) was back on July 24th 2008, when the movie was originally scheduled for release, but didn’t happen because the ’24’ producers realized they couldn’t make the series and prep the movie simultaneously, and put it off indefinitely, thereby blowing a big hole in 20th Century Fox’s (who were banking on the ’24’ movie being their big summer release that year) summer ’08 schedule, leaving them no option but to throw together the second ‘X-Files’ movie at relative short notice in order to have something released that July… and look at how that ended up!

Personally, I happen to believe that Kiefer Sutherland was wrong to sign up for three additional seasons in 2006, it was obvious at the time he wanted to concentrate on other projects – he all but said it in interviews at the time – but felt an admirable sense of loyalty to the show that revived his faltering career, and did his duty to keep it on the air for a while longer, whereas he probably should have just signed on for both a sixth (and final) season and the inevitable movie. If the producers’ knew going in that the sixth season was the last one, they would have approached it very differently (as evidenced by the last eight or nine episodes of the eighth season), would have went absolutely go-for-broke and no-holds-barred on it, and it would have worked like gangbusters (in my opinion) because nothing would have been off the table, and it would have had real dramatic weight behind it, something the eventual sixth season lacked for the most part, and as for the movie, considering how big ’24’ was at the time, not to mention how much Fox wanted the movie for summer 2008, the ’24’ producers would have had absolutely no problems getting a very substantial budget, possibly as much as $70m, unlike the current predicament they now face, where Fox don’t want to pay out more than $30m, simply put because ’24’ is long past it’s commercial and creative peak, whereas had Kiefer signed on for the movie in 2006 when the show was at it’s zenith, the studio would have bent over backwards to facilitate it with every resource at their disposal, but the series went on too long, it missed it’s optimum time to make the transition to the big screen, and it’s now paying the price for that unfortunately. I do still hope it gets made, but I fear the longer it’s put back, the less chance Fox will want to put tens of millions of dollars behind what they will increasingly see as a franchise whose time has come and gone…

Well person of interest is more intriguing then this I agree 100% it’s dull and slow. Sorry Kiefer the fans want Jack/ & a good thriller not this…… Glad I stopped watching. person of interest Jim ceviezil Character John reese Does what he thinks is right. Not exactly like Jack But very similar.

Person Of Interest is a great show. Great writing and acting and the action for a tv show is top notch in my opinion. Jim Caviezel said during the panel at the Paley Center that it was because of 24 and Kiefer Sutherland that inspired him to do the show. It also helps that Jonathan Nolan, the guy who wrote Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises is the one who created the show. I know this is very unlikely, but FOX and Imagine should really try to get him to write the 24 movie. Just think of all the buzz that will generate of having him attached to write the movie.

Touch is cheesy, bad written, repetitive …What a waste for Kiefer been forced to run after his son in each episode (how many times can he lose his son in a single episode?) to repeat the same lines:”Jake..Buddy…Jake..where are you going? Jake!”
And he posponed the 24 movie that gave him the role of a lifetime to do that …I love Kiefer but I’m very disapointed :(

I would have to disagree with Nolan writing a story for 24 one thing I don’t like is he compares Batman & POI together and there completely Different worlds. 24 is a Thriller/espionage which needs a writer with experience in that world.He’s fine for Person of interest the stories are even consistent which is nice cause that’s what 24 was Touch reminds me of one of those movies you watch & it takes them forever to get to the story.Anyway back on point I believe they already have a writer for 24 anyway. Person of interest Has things in it that I liked about 24 Touch is Borrring I’ll Watch Person of interest til Jack resurfeses

RorshachLives!
May 11, 2012 at 9:26 pm
I understand where you’re coming from, @Northern Star, but even though the latter three ’24’ seasons may not have reached the stellar heights of the first five (the last quarter of Season 8 notwithstanding, which was truly searing stuff), they were nonetheless top-notch and arguably better than anything else on television at the time, and Kiefer may have signed on for three more seasons because he genuinely wanted to, not just out of loyalty, and I for one am glad he did, for they may have repeated themselves somewhat every so often in those latter three seasons, but some of the very best moments in ’24’ as a whole were in those seasons, so it all ended up working out well in the end, as far as I’m concerned… well, apart from Fox being tight about the movie budget, that is!!!

And as far as the proposed ’24’ movie that was originally to be released in 2008, they were right, in my humble opinion, to put it off until the series was finished, and knowing how tight Fox are (as recent events have proven, ’nuff said!), I would guess they wouldn’t have got a cent more than $65million at most – which is still some serious coin – considering it was to be shot in Prague, London, and Morocco, all of which are considerably cheaper than filming in the U.S., and the studio would have wanted a maximum return on minimum expenditure, which makes their reluctance to give the current ’24’ movie script the minimum $40million being asked of it all the more perplexing…

I’m very much looking forward to seeing ‘Person of Interest’, as I’m a big fan of both Jim Caviezel and Jonathan Nolan, but no-one here in either the U.K. and Ireland have bought the rights to it yet, why I don’t know, I guess if it was anti-American liberal propaganda like ‘Homeland’ it would have been snapped up in no time, but if ‘Person of Interest’ is as good as people say, we just may have the next ’24’ on our hands; a truly original and innovative action series that will build up a wide audience as it goes on, and maybe even a movie if successful enough…

I’m surprised to see people compare 24 and Person of Interest as if they are on equal footing.

POI is a decent show, especially for CBS which only does lame cop shows 99% of the time, but it doesn’t have a thing on 24.

I thought touch was a brilliant series and I hope they make another one and find Emily. Alcatraz is excellent too. There must.be another series.

franco rojas escorza
June 9, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Ojala Que Nunca Nunca Nunca Nunca Nunca Termine La Serie TOUCH

I loved touch, was caught from the start and totally got the idea. Didnt miss a show and looking forward to the next chapter :) guess we all different

Kim and I are on the same page. I would love to see Alcatraz come back and I want to see Emily as well in TOUCH. Love the Mystery of it all. Great writers.!