Royal Pains is one of the most popular shows to have ever aired on the USA Network. The program began its run in 2009, with a cast that included the likes of Mark Feuerstein, Paulo Costanzo, Jill Flint, and Reshma Shetty. Royal Pains is a show that follows Feurstein’s character Hank Lawson as he works in the Hamptons as a concierge doctor. This show was a key part of the USA Network’s lineup for many years, but fans of the series may have noticed that no new episodes of Royal Pains have come out in years. Why is that? Was Royal Pains cancelled? If so, why was Royal Pains cancelled? Is Royal Pains going to come back? In this article, I intend to answer that question, among a few others. I’m going to talk about how Royal Pains rose to prominence in television, while providing fans of the show with an update as to what has been going on in more recent years with this popular program.
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Royal Pains‘s Development
The conception of Royal Pains has been a topic of debate among a great many people. It has been claimed that Hayden Christensen, best known for his work as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, and his brother Tove Christensen pitched the idea of the show to the USA Network. Their show was called Housecall, and it was also about a concierge doctor who made house calls to rich and famous people. Housecall obviously never came to be, and the Christensen brothers felt as if they had been ripped off when they saw Royal Pains airing on the network. They filed a lawsuit, which went on for a few years before being settled privately in 2013. Regardless as to who came up with the idea of Royal Pains, the pilot for the show began filming in early 2009.
The pilot boasted an impressive crew, with a director in Jace Alexander. You may not recognize Alexander’s name, but he’s the same guy who directed the pilot for Burn Notice, another wildly popular series to air on the USA Network. The pilot itself was written by Andrew Lenchewski, who had very little experience in television writing and production prior to that point. Following this pilot, the USA Network picked up Royal Pains for twelve episodes as its first season. With all of that work out of the way, showtime was rapidly approaching. The first season of Royal Pains premiered on June 4 of 2009, and the world was very happy with what they saw in this program.
Royal Pains‘s Reception
The series premiere of this show was already one of the most impressive that the USA Network had ever seen, bringing in over 5 million viewers. This is one of the largest premieres that the network had had since the premiere of Psych, which would go on to have eight very popular seasons. Even more impressive, this premiere was not the highest rated episode of the first season of Royal Pains. Their season one viewership peaked at about 6.6 million people who tuned in to watch the ninth episode of the season, “It’s Like Jamais Vu All Over Again”. Following this impressive showing, it isn’t much of a surprise that the USA Network would pick up the program for a second season. The second season of Royal Pains began airing in June of 2012, and it was eighteen episodes long. The season premiered with nearly 6 million viewers, and it peaked at a little over 6 million viewers during the episode “Open Up Your Yenta Mouth and Say Ah”.
By this point, it’s safe to say that the program had established quite the loyal viewership. There were a lot of people who were tuning into Royal Pains on a regular basis, and they liked what they were seeing. The third season of the show, which was 16 episodes long, premiered in June of 2011. This season was one of the first to show a marked decrease in ratings. The premiere was only viewed by 5 million people, and it hit its peak at around 5.5 million viewers with “An Apple a Day”. This trend of downward viewership just continued through 2012’s season four. Season four debuted with under 4 million viewers, and it peaked at 4.2 million viewers with “About Face”. Despite this decilne, it’s worth noting that Royal Pains was still very acclaimed. During this season, they earned a People’s Choice Award nomination for Favorite Cable TV Comedy. They didn’t end up winning, but it was still an honor to be considered in the first place.
Over the next couple of seasons, this decline would continue. The fifth season premiered to 3.6 million people, and the sixth season premiered to just 2.3 million people. Although fans of the series would still claim that the quality of Royal Pains remained the same, their viewership was rapidly dwindling. It was becoming their that there were a lot of people who just weren’t interested in the show anymore. Still, the USA Network continued to renew Royal Pains. Its seventh season premiered in 2015, and its premiere only attracted 1.6 million viewers. The season was only 8 episodes long, and that was the most viewers that it ever got at one time. Season eight, which premiered in 2016, had equally disappointing numbers. Its highest viewed episode was the season finale, which had 1.8 million viewers. This episode, “Uninterrupted”, would also be the series finale.
What’s Royal Pains Doing Now in 2018 – Recent Updates
Yes, season eight would be the final season of Royal Pains, and I don’t think that it really takes a rocket scientist to figure out why this series was cut short. The program had fans, and it was acclaimed. (In 2013, it won Top Television Series at the ASCAP Awards”. However, money talks in cable television, and there just weren’t enough people watching Royal Pains during its later seasons. It had a very strong start, but a lot of people apparently lost interest in the story of Dr. Hank Lawson and all of his friends. Although fans of this show may be sad that this show is over, and that it probably won’t ever come back, it at least had a very good run. Royal Pains aired over 100 episodes during its run, which is a lot more than a lot of other television shows ever get.
