Cancellation Watch Breaking News: Syfy Renews Dominion and Defiance

Syfy announced just a short time ago that they would be bringing back their two Summer series Dominion and Defiance.  The former series will return for a second season and the latter will be back for a third year.  Both shows have received orders of thirteen episodes (standard for Syfy) and will see the showrunners from their current seasons return.  The renewals for these two were anything but certain based on the somewhat mediocre ratings they pulled in their Thursday night timeslots the last few months.  Both shows averaged only a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic based on the overnights and I was thinking that might be too low based on their production costs.  The prior year, Defiance average a 0.8 rating.  However, the current ratings slump that the broadcast networks have experienced seems to have extended to several of the cable channels including Syfy, and perhaps that was factored in.  Also, the shows aired on Thursday nights which has not been one of the typical nights that network has aired scripted programming and seemed it seemed to result in lower ratings (and Haven is currently struggling there with its fifth season return).  Dominion and Defiance also seemed to fit in well with Syfy’s commitment to more science fiction oriented scripted programming, so that might have helped their cause as well.

Fans of both shows will be pleased as they have demonstrated a notable level of engagement on the social network sites and the polls I have run on this site (and those fans should be sure to vote for the shows in the Summer Sci Fi TV Pulse poll at this link).  Expect to see Dominion and Defiance on Syfy’s schedule either late-Spring or Summer 2015.

Buy Defiance Season 1 on DVD and Stream Both Shows from Amazon Instant Video: