Who will keep New York's streets safe during the graveyard shift if "Third Watch" is gone? NBC, for one, doesn't care. As expected, NBC won't bring the drama back for a seventh season.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC has informed Warner Bros. TV and John Wells Prods. that "Third Watch" will eventually return from its current hiatus to complete its sixth season, but that it won't be on the schedule for next fall.

Since it premiered back in 1999, "Third Watch" has been a solid, but never remarkable performer for NBC, bouncing around the network's schedule from Sundays to Mondays and finally to Fridays, where it was recently shelved to make room for "Law & Order: Trial by Jury."

This season, through its first 18 airings, "Third Watch" is pulling in 9.36 million viewers per week. Those numbers are roughly in line with the 9.4 million viewers it averaged last season, but well below the 11.6 million the show hooked on Mondays during the 2002-03 season.

A large ensemble about cops, paramedics and firefighters, "Third Watch" has, at various times, starred the likes of Nia Long, Michael Beach, Eddie Cibrian, Bobby Cannivale, Kim Raver, Chris Bauer, Molly Price and Coby Bell.

In 2000, the series won a sound editing Emmy.