Cancellation Watch: The Olympics are Over but Almost Human, Intelligence, and Star-Crossed are Still Struggling

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:

The Hot Seat: So the 2014 Winter Olympics are over and the Prime Time schedule for the broadcast networks is getting back to normal this week with most shows resuming new episodes.  But the Sochi games definitely did some damage to several of the genre entries, especially the Monday (aka Sci Fi Suicide Night) shows that had to air new episodes against Olympics coverage the last two weeks.  And to make matters worse, NBC’s ratings juggernaut The Voice returned this week, giving several of these shows no chance to catch their breath.  Among those competing against The Voice, FOX’s Almost Human slipped a tick from last week pulling a 1.6 rating in the 18-49 demo with 5.3 million total viewers.  That is even with the show’s season low and not a good direction to be headed as it stumbles to the finish line of its first year.  The CW’s new entry Star-Crossed also slipped against The Voice, pulling only a 0.3 rating with 1.1 million total viewers.  That has the show as almost certainly dead weight, and the network could cast it to Fridays at any point like it did with Cult last season or it could kick it to a Summer burn-off run (which which is also where Cult headed after a few pitiful Friday airings).  Beauty and the Beast was mercifully a rerun against The Voice, and that one will be going on a second hiatus soon before wrapping up (likely for good) in May.  On CBS, Intelligence did not have to contend with The Voice, but almost as challenging was a new episode of The Blacklist (also on NBC) which kept the Josh Holloway starrer at a 1.2 rating with 5.4 million total viewers.  All four of these Monday shows seem certainly headed for a date with the network executioner by the end of the season (despite what writer/producer Michael Sietzman recently tweeted about Intelligence).

On Friday, Syfy’s Helix still had to contend with Olympics coverage, though it did manage to improve its numbers slightly from the previous week as it pulled a 0.4 rating with 1.5 million total viewers.  That’s pretty close to what Haven averaged this last season and it was renewed, but then that show had already completed four seasons.  I’m thinking Syfy would much rather see Helix at a 0.5 score or higher to feel strongly about giving it a second set of episodes.

Other Ratings News:  The Walking Dead slipped again this week to a 6.6 rating with 13.1 million total viewers, but when you are the top rated show on all of television (beating even the Olympics in the 18-49 demo), what’s a few ticks here or there?  That show’s discussion/recap series The Talking Dead ended up being the second highest rated show among the cable offerings for Sunday night with a 2.4 score and 4.7 million total viewers.  That 2.4 number was also good enough to beat everything on the broadcast nets in Prime Time apart from the Olympics (though it was mostly repeats).  Teen Wolf held on to its 0.9 rating for yet another week while pulling 1.9 million total viewers as that one continues to shine for MTV.  Syfy’s Being Human improved to a 0.5 rating with 1.2 million total viewers, but found out today that it is getting cancelled (which I discuss in more detail at this link).  It has actually averaged a 0.5 score thus far in its fourth season which is better than the 0.4 Haven had in Fall.  But Being Human gets axed while Haven gets renewed leaving me to wonder what the heck is going on at that network.  In all fairness, though, Haven has a strong online presence which could be helping its cause and Being Human may be subject to a licensing arrangement with the BBC (where the original version aired) that could make it a more expensive property.  Plus, Syfy is going through a reorg according to The Hollywood Reporter, so you expect some shakeups.

Almost all of the currently airing sci fi/fantasy shows are back with new episodes this week (Agents of SHIELD won’t be back until next week, though) so keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for their ratings results as well as 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.

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and The Futon Critic

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

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