By WENDY STEWART
Beat Staff Writer

What’s a canceled television series supposed to do when the host network decides not to ask for new episodes?

Kill off the cast and blow up the props.

It’s already being done for NBC’s Trauma — the ratings-starved medical drama set in San Francisco. Monday’s episode had a shuttle bus careening into an ambulance sending two of the main characters to the hospital with major injuries.

Destroyed shuttle bus: check. Pulverized ambulance: check. Almost off-ing your characters: check.

All the ingredients for a faltering show that’s on the brink being shelved into the NBC video morgue are there.

The do-not-resuscitate order for Trauma came down last week after NBC execs couldn’t take anymore dips in the show’s ratings. Fewer and fewer viewers tuned into the high-adrenaline show every week.

It was the high cost of filming (it cost something like $3 million per episode to film), and the lousy reviews that put the final nail in the coffin for the show.

Just take a look at the above photos from Trauma’s Treasure Island set for just how expensive it must be to produce this show.

We can’t imagine that destroying so many vehicles for a mid-season episode, the bus, the ambulance and a taxi, is cheap.

Especially when no one is watching.

E-mail Wendy Stewart at californiabeat@gmail.com. Join the California Beat on Facebook, and get breaking news headlines, story alerts and previews when you follow us on Twitter.