Network says show will return, but not when

It may be a while before anyone finds out what happened to "The Nine" inside that bank.

ABC has pulled the critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged series from its schedule effective immediately. A special edition of "20/20" will take its place on Wednesday, Nov. 29, and another newsmagazine, "Primetime," will move into the 10 p.m. Wednesday spot the following week.

The network made the announcement on Saturday, in the midst of a holiday weekend when presumably the TV critics who hailed the show at the start of the season aren't working. Its ratings haven't matched the praise, though: Through last week the show had averaged just 8.6 million viewers, fumbling more than half of the 17.7 million viewers who watched its lead-in, "Lost."

With "Lost" now on hiatus, numbers for "The Nine" tumbled even further this week, finishing a distant third in its timeslot.

"The Nine," which stars Tim Daly, Kim Raver, Chi McBride and Scott Wolf, follows the lives of people who survived a 52-hour hostage standoff resulting from a botched bank robbery. The series' primary focus is on the emotional fallout for the survivors, with flashback sequences filling in the events of the robbery.

ABC says the show will return sometime later this season but is offering no specifics. It joins another ABC freshman show, "Six Degrees," in scheduling limbo.