CBS has pulled the plug on Waterfront, the TV series filmed in Rhode Island starring Joe Pantoliano as the charismatic, ethically shady mayor of Providence. The show, slated as a mid-season replacement, was scheduled to run early next year.

Pantoliano, who won an Emmy for playing Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos, said he was shooting scenes at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence Tuesday night when he got a phone call from his agent with the bad news.

Pantoliano said he never saw it coming. He said he can’t remember a TV show that was closed down in the middle of production — Waterfront has shot the pilot plus four additional episodes — before it could even get on the air.

CBS had ordered 13 episodes of Waterfront. The show’s cast and crew has been filming here since the beginning of September and expected to be working through January.

“I think this is unprecedented — the first time anything like this has happened that I’ve heard of. Normally you get on the air, the numbers are bad, and then you can see [cancellation] coming,” Pantoliano said.

Part of the problem for Waterfront is that CBS, the most stable of the major TV networks, doesn’t have a convenient place to put it. New dramas Jericho and Shark, which stars former Rhode Islander James Woods, are doing well enough to stay on the air. Smith, a heist drama starring Ray Liotta, was pulled after just three episodes and is being replaced by 3 Lbs, a drama about brain surgeons starring Stanley Tucci.

Waterfront producer Peter McIntosh said the show was within its budget and on schedule, but CBS apparently didn’t want to spend more money on something it didn’t have any room for on the schedule.

The Los Angeles Times reported that, after seeing Waterfront’s second episode, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler was unhappy with the show’s direction. Pantoliano said he hasn’t spoken directly to Tassler, but he was told she had concerns about the show’s tone.

“It’s not like anything else on the network,” Pantoliano said. “It’s both funny and sad, a political family drama along the lines of Grey’s Anatomy. There are a lot of different storylines. . . I agree with Nina in that it demands your attention.”

McIntosh said the show, which had its production office and indoor sets in Cumberland, was now in “shut-down mode.”

“We’re returning equipment and striking the sets,” he said. “I’ve had to tell 95 people they’re laid off when they thought they’d be working until February.”

Pantoliano said he’s still proud of Waterfront and said he’s working on a way that the five completed episodes can be broadcast somewhere, so at least people will have a chance to see it. In the meantime, Pantoliano said he’s tentatively planning to show the pilot and the first episode at the Tazza Caffé, 250 Westminster St., in downtown Providence, at 6 p.m. Monday. The public is invited to attend.

The cancellation of Waterfront is unhappy news for Rhode Island’s Film & Television office, which has been overseeing a wave of film and television production in Rhode Island in the past two years. Executive director Steven Feinberg had estimated that Waterfront could bring up to $30 million to the local economy, a figure that includes everything from salaries for local crew members to money spent on meals and construction equipment.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I wish the show had an opportunity to be seen. I’ve seen the pilot, and it photographs Providence beautifully. There’s a lot of warmth and humor to the show. Personally, I’m a big fan.”

Feinberg said that the big picture still looks promising. Brotherhood, the gritty Showtime series set in Providence about two brothers on opposite sides of the law, will return for a second season. And there are two movies currently in production here, Evening, with Meryl Streep and Vanessa Redgrave, and Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell.

As for Pantoliano, he’s got a plan: He said he’ll knock on filmmaker Michael Corrente’s door and see if he can play Buddy Cianci in Corrente’s film adaptation of Michael Stanton’s biography The Prince of Providence. “I’ll tell him I’ve done the dress rehearsals for the role of Buddy Cianci,” Pantoliano said. “I’ve already got the hairpiece.”