Syfy announced today that its vampire-pocalypse series Van Helsing has been renewed for a second season. That series follow Vanessa Helsing who is the daughter of the famous Abraham Van Helsing and who is resurrected in a world overrun by vampires. It’s numbers have been okay for a Syfy entry thus far in its first season, averaging a 0.18 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic. That network has typically been giving its shows at least two seasons to prove themselves, so the renewal is not a huge surprise considering its relative ratings performance. It also comes as part of a partnership with the Canadian Super Channel which makes it less expensive to Syfy. At this point, consider the prospects for Fall entries Aftermath (which comes as part of a partnership with the Canadian Space Channel) and Channel Zero to be pretty good because they have pulled similar numbers or better than Van Helsing.
MTV has finally revealed the fate of their horror series Scream as they have announced a third season renewal for that one. But it will only be for six episodes and the cable channel has not indicated if it will be the show’s last. The series, which is a continuation of the big screen franchise, will also be changing showrunners (for a second time), perhaps in an attempt to revive its viewership. Scream slipped notably in the ratings in its second season, though it did continue to demonstrate “stickiness” in the social networks (important for MTV as their audience skews younger). Perhaps the new showrunners will key off that to try and get viewership up. That show has a two your Halloween special that will air next week and the third season will bow at some point in 2017.
We are still waiting to hear word on several Spring / Summer shows: Braindead (Cancellation Likely), Wayward Pines (On the Bubble), and Slasher (Renewal Possible). Be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for updates and breaking announcements on these shows and more.
