Cancellation Watch: Sleepy Hollow Has a Sleepy Season 2 Exit, 12 Monkeys and Helix 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 sci fi / fantasy shows airing Friday Feb 20th thru Monday Feb 23rd (analysis and metric definitions below):

Resumes new episodes March 20th

Season ended, cancellation expected.

No good news yet for this show. It needs to get those numbers back up as it finishes its first season. (More on this one below)

At these ratings levels, this show appears to be a goner. (More on this one below).

Resumes new episodes March 1st.

A nice rebound from last week’s drop, and that was against the Academy Awards. As I said last week, no worries for this show.

Resumes new episodes mid-March.

This show has rebounded nicely from its season lows. I expect it to hold around here for the rest of the season, assuming the ratings slump does not take too much of a toll.

Not great numbers for its season finale. The future for this show looks murky. (More on this one below)

On the Hot Seat: FOX’s Sleepy Hollow had its Season 2 finale on Monday and pulled a 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 4.4 million total viewers. That’s up from the lows that the show slipped to this season, but definitely not a strong finish for its second year. FOX has already been somewhat tentative about the future of this show and the fact that it slipped notably during the second half of its current season definitely has not helped its case. My guess is that we won’t hear anything on whether it will be back for a third year until May when the networks are setting their schedules for next season. So it’s a waiting game right now and it would be a good idea for fans to start making some noise on the social nets to let FOX know that the show has support.

On Friday, Syfy’s two entries continued to struggle as 12 Monkeys remained at a 0.2 rating in the 18-49 demo with about 700k total viewers and Helix was at a 0.1 rating with about 500k total viewers. Ratings wise, those numbers may look the same as last week, but if you extend them out a decimal place you will see they dropped: 12 Monkey went from 0.23 to 0.17 and Helix went from 0.13 to 0.10. This is definitely a low point for original scripted shows on Syfy (not including imports like Sinbad or The Almighty Johnsons) and a clear indication to me that fans have still not bought into the network’s return to science fiction. And to think that Syfy moved one of their (sad to say) top rated shows–wrestling–to Thursdays in order to bring back “Sci Fi Fridays”, you have to wonder it they might be reconsidering the plans for their change in direction. I still think that 12 Monkeys has the best chance of the two to survive because it continues to receive good buzz. But not if its numbers keep sinking. And Helix seems almost certainly doomed at this point.

Be sure keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page. And for more information on where I get these numbers and how I make my Cancellation Alert assessments, check out the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

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Metric Definitions:

Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted

% Chng PW: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating.

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers (age 2+) to tune in to the episode for same day viewing.

StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.

Target: The estimated average rating that the show needs to sustain to get renewed.

Cancellation Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.

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Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and ShowBuzzDaily

2 thoughts on “Cancellation Watch: Sleepy Hollow Has a Sleepy Season 2 Exit, 12 Monkeys and Helix Still Struggling”

Brenda Kay says:

February 28, 2015 at 8:20 pm

I was so excited for the second season of “Helix” and while I expected the story to move to another setting I wasn’t expecting for the show to rapidly become such a crapfest of insulting and offensive story lines.

Obviously the writers thought it would be compelling having the story jump back and forth from present day to 30 years in the future, along with introducing a shadowy cult lead by a mysterious figure. But the gratuitous and thankfully unseen scenes of hand-jobs, a Jonestown like mass murder/suicide, and most sickening of all, a 500 year old immortal having incestuous relationships with his daughters – are perhaps the reasons why the ratings for “Helix” are so incredibly abysmal this season.

Honestly, this show doesn’t deserve a third season, which is a real shame because the story arc itself is actually quite interesting.

Debbie says:

February 25, 2015 at 9:43 am

I love Sleepy Hollow and thought the season 2 finale was awesome..really hope Fox renews..might do better on a different night…lots of great shows on Monday.