Cancellation Watch: Star-Crossed Debuts Poorly as Monday Becomes Broadcast Net Sci Fi Suicide Night, Plus The Walking Dead Drops

Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

Ratings Results for the Friday through Monday sci fi / fantasy shows (note that ratings numbers were delayed this week due to the President’s Day holiday):

The Hot Seat:  The CW’s new teen sci fi romance series Star-Crossed had its debut on Monday which turned out to be a bad thing as that night appears to have turned into the sci fi suicide night for broadcast network genre shows this mid-season.  The series could only muster a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 1.3 total viewers.  That puts it barely above the fifth place network’s lowest rated shows like Beauty and the Beast and almost certainly on a fast track to cancellation.  I have it starting out at a Medium Cancellation Alert status and it would have been much higher if the show aired on any of the other networks.  Unless it sees significant jumps in its numbers next week (very unlikely) or the network moves it to a better timeslot (also very unlikely), consider this one a goner that will air out its episode order and disappear at season end.  Also take note that The Tomorrow People‘s move to this night next month can almost certainly be looked at as a burn-off run at this point, so consider it on its way out as well.

Also airing on the broadcast nets on Monday were Almost Human (FOX), Intelligence (CBS), and Beauty and the Beast (CW) which makes you wonder if their networks are just burning off these shows as they are among the few that have run new eps against the Olympics and they did expectedly poor in the face of that competition.  Almost Human actually grew its numbers slightly from last week to a 1.7 rating with 5.4 million total viewers, but that’s likely not enough to improve the status of this show in the eyes its network execs.  This show has faced many scheduling hurdles since its debut late November and has done admirably well considering the odds against it, but it surely seems likely FOX is determined to bury this one.  On CBS, Intelligence slipped to a 1.2 rating with 5.9 million total viewers and there’s likely no chance for this one at this point.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the network were to yank it from the schedule once the Olympics are over.  On The CW, Beauty and the Beast continued to fly low, pulling a 0.3 rating with with about 800k total viewers.  And on Friday, Syfy’s Helix slipped to its lowest level thus far, only scrapping up a 0.3 rating with 1.2 million total viewers.  The chances of that one getting a second season are looking grimmer at this point.

Other Ratings News: The Walking Dead‘s second mid-season episode saw the expected drop in its numbers, pulling “only” a 6.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic with a “mere” 13.3 million total viewers.  I predicted this drop last week (and it was even a little more than I expected), but it’s no big deal as the show still beat the Olympics in the 18-49 demo for the night and topped every other non-sports show on television for the week.  Expect it to continue to slip a bit in the coming weeks, but it will likely stay somewhere in the 6.0 to 7.0 for the rest of its current season.  MTV’s Teen Wolf continued to perform strong for its network as it pulled another 0.9 score on Monday with 2.1 million total viewers despite stiff competition from the Olympics.  That one looks pretty much set to stick around for several more seasons (it has already been renewed for a fourth year).

Like last week, the rest of the sci fi / fantasy shows are either preempted or in repeats instead of competing with the Olympics, though I will keep an eye out in case I missed anything.  I will go ahead and post the current numbers below and tell you to keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for any updates or breaking news.  You can see the current status for all this season’s genre shows at this link,  and for more information on the ratings numbers and how I determine the Cancellation Alert status of a show, see the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

Here are the season to date numbers and standings through February 19th for all the shows that have bowed so far (sorted by most likely to get cancelled):

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and The Futon Critic

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2014 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.