After a couple weeks of tracking ratings and making predictions, I finally have some concrete insight into The Player‘s future. Variety recently released some bad news for The Player. It seems that NBC has trimmed the episode order to 9 because of its low ratings. A typical season will lean toward 12 episodes, so this is a quarter of the season cut. It is not a decision you make lightly. This won’t come to a surprise to many of the critics who give The Player primarily poor reviews. Most complained that the concept was too absurd, or that there were too many complex rules to explain to an audience who wasn’t hooked enough to pay close attention.

What might come as surprise is that this decision was made after the first increase in the ratings The Player has had since its premiere. This past Thursday’s ratings in the adults aged 18-49 was a 0.9. This is over a tenth of a point up from last week’s ratings.