Trivial fans may get answer they want

Tandi Wright as Catherine in Nothing Trivial ... fans don't know if she's alive or dead after a van hit her.

Axed television series Nothing Trivial may return in a one-off special after being unexpectedly canned at the end of its third season to howls of protests from fans.

Television New Zealand spokeswoman Megan Richards this week said writers had been hired for a special finale episode to "tie up loose ends".

The season ended on a brutal cliffhanger when leading lady Catherine (Tandi Wright) was struck by a van, just as it appeared her troubled relationship with Mac (Shane Cortese) was back on track.

Viewers were left not knowing if she was dead or alive.

The network said poor ratings made it difficult to justify paying for a further season of the programme, but thousands of disgruntled viewers took to social media to lobby the state broadcaster to reconsider its decision.

In a surprise move, TVNZ revealed it has agreed to an approach by the show's producers, South Pacific Pictures, to write a one-off script. A draft is expected in a few weeks.

But Richards warned this was not confirmation the finale would go ahead.

"There are plenty of ifs and buts, and it's perfectly possible that this won't go ahead, so we don't want to raise hopes only to dash them," she said.

"We've had to disappoint fans once and we'd rather not do it again."

She said the network had to assess the quality of the script before asking NZ on Air for the more than half a million dollars of public money it would take to make the finale.

The network also had to assess it against its own drama strategy. The show would have to make a positive contribution or filming would not take place.

Richards said the series was abandoned because not enough people were watching to it.

The average audience had dropped from 412,000 to 258,000 over the second and third seasons.