Fox Shuts Down Production Of 'Brimstone'

Fox suddenly pulled the plug on "Brimstone" Friday, and no one is more surprised than the producers.

While the show had been struggling in the ratings since the unexpected success of NBC's "Providence," no one really thought those two shows were competing for the same audience.

But according to reports posted on the web by the show's producers, execs from Fox Entertainment visited the set on Friday, and shut down the production, two hours into a shoot. Plans are to air three more already produced episodes, although late word from Fox is that they may not even do that.

In their message to fans, producers Reiff and Voris have assured everyone that they are planning to make available to the public copies of the scripts for episodes 14,15 and 16. Those three now-unproduced scripts begin to fill in a lot of the life of Zeke before he was consigned to Hell. They're titled, "Rivals," "Deadline" and "Angel." The three already- produced episodes are entitled, "Faces," "It's A Helluva Life," and "Mourning After."

Brimstone has had a troubled history with Fox. It was originally scheduled to air at 9pm on Tuesdays, then was pulled from the schedule before the season started for a massive retooling. The show eventually debuted late in the fall season in its current timeslot at 8pm on Fridays, replacing two sitcoms.

Even under the best of circumstances, that timeslot has been deadly for a number of Fox shows. And being coupled with the continually troubled "Millennium" hasn't helped matters.

In fact, this will make the third set of shows that has bit the dust in that timeslot this season. The Wes Craven/Shaun Cassidy drama "Hollyweird" never even made it to air, and the network's attempts to air sitcoms in that timeslot failed as well.

There's no word yet on what will air in that timeslot, although late word from Fox is that a combination of reality specials and X-Files reruns will fill the hour until the end of the February Sweeps.