I'll try to deliver this news with a little more tact than Rainn Wilson's spectacularly rude detective would do: "Backstrom" gave it a good try, but the numbers just weren't there.

If I were to be more "irascible" (which is how Fox describes Wilson's character) about it, I'd say that the more people saw of "Backstrom," the less they liked it.

It premiered to fairly good ratings, but shed viewers pretty steadily from there.

This was a bit surprising because the premise seemed solid. Fox has been doing well with crime-comedy with "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," and people loved watching Rainn Wilson be uncomfortably blunt when he played Dwight Schrute on NBC's "The Office" for nine hit seasons.

Yet the combo didn't work for "Backstrom," and so the season 1 finale that aired at the end of April is now the series finale.

The show's chances were probably hurt by the fact that expectations were very high. People have been looking for great things out of Wilson after "The Office," and his "Backstrom" character also drew a lot of comparisons to Fox's previous lovable grouch, Dr. Gregory House of "House M.D."

It didn't live up to the hopes, though. Vulture.com TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz called the show "predictable," while "The Guardian's" Brian Moylan was a little more expansive, saying "there is nothing that new or interesting here that hasn't been around since 'Columbo.'"

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