in december 1995, the fox network decided not to pick up its option for more episodes of the show, despite receiving more letters and mail than they ever had for any show. by january 1997, the bbc had raised all of the necessary money for an eight-episode-long third season of "tv nation", receiving funds from tv networks in five different countries (canada, australia, new zealand, south africa and france). what prevented the third season from becoming a reality was a lack of a major american television network outlet for the show. during this time reruns of the show began appearing on comedy central, and ratings for the first week were, in moore's words, "incredible."