this time. Ratings Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of American Dreams on NBC. Cancellation On May 16, 2005, NBC announced their fall schedule for the 2005–06 season. Confirming months of speculation (and an unofficial confirmation article on May 1 by Reuters), American Dreams was formally canceled, due to low ratings. Never a strong performer in its Sunday 8pm timeslot, the show's third-season ratings dropped 33% from its first season and 13% from its second season. In the third season, the show was regularly beaten in the Sunday night ratings by ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and CBS's Cold Case. On February 2, 2005, NBC reduced the number of third-season episodes of American Dreams from 19 to 17. The network also moved the program away from its original Sunday night timeslot to Wednesday nights, airing before The West Wing. This put the show up against CBS's Survivor: Palau and ABC's Lost, and American Dreams could not compete against these popular programs. As the third season wound down, actors on the show filmed pilots for new shows to possibly air in the 2005–06 television season. Fans of American Dreams organized a campaign to save the show, sending over 5000 supportive e-mails to NBC after the season finale and several thousand postcards to the network as well. On May 4, 2005, fans flew an aerial banner over NBC's Burbank studios in support of the show, even as the show's sets were being dismantled at Sunset-Gower Studios, where it was filmed. It had been reported that American Dreams may have been canceled as early as December 2004. Jonathan Prince mentioned in a Miami Herald article that he was able to get four additional episodes made by having companies such as Kraft and Nabisco pay for additional episodes in exchange for product placement (Campbell's Soups and Ford also participated in product placement episodes). Series epilogue The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on April 12, 2005, that in late February, NBC ordered two endings filmed for the season finale. The un-aired ending was reported to be a 12-minute segment set on July 20, 1969 (the day Apollo 11 landed on the Moon), with Meg returning home to face her family after a three-year absence. NBC opted not to air the 12-minute epilogue when the third-season finale aired on March 30, 2005, a month and a half before the official cancellation of the series. TV