After a promising start on primetime television, BBC's "Outcasts" has now been shifted to the UK channels death slot.

In its first episode, the drama series attracted an impressive 4.4 million viewers and revolved heavily around the character Mitchell, played by "Battlestar Galactica's" Jamie Bamber.

The launch episode received poor reviews, with many critics slamming the show for being to slow and failing to carry any tension. Although the setup of the series picked up in the following episodes and since then the stories have become more focused, the ratings have not.

This week, episodes 3 and 4 dropped to almost half of what the initial launch received. Episode 3 attracted 2.9 million viewers, with episode 4 slipping even further to 2.6 million.

Revolving around a group of settlers on the planet Carpathia, "Outcasts" is set against the background of an Earth-wide evacuation as the human race tries to secure its future. However, the settling process is far from perfect and each of the colonists are unable to escape the sins of their past.

The series has been in production since 2007 and filming took place in 2010 in South Africa in order to give the series a landscape needed to sell the idea that Carpathia is a barren and empty world.

Despite the poor ratings performance by "Outcasts," BBC drama controller Ben Stephenson insists that this will not stop BBC from taking risks or commissioning shows that do things a little bit different.

"BBC1 and BBC Drama support creative risk," he said. "Sometimes this means that talented people make shows that don't engage enough of the audience. I have so much respect for any writer who has the nerve and confidence to create their own original world and serve it up to an audience."

The current schedule will continue for episodes 5 and 6, with episode 7 moving to the late slot on Feb. 27.