Cancellation Watch: The Expanse and Legion Drop, But Should Still be Okay

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 of Interest: On Wednesday, Syfy’s The Expanse slipped to a 0.14 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 530k total viewers. That has it down over a tenth of a point from its Season 2 debut numbers of a 0.25 score and that also represents a series low for the show. But according to this poll, it appears a good percentage of people is watching it online, and Syfy does pay attention to those numbers. Plus, it has been getting a ton of good buzz from the sci fi community, so I still like its chances of surviving to a third season. Over on FX, Legion slipped to a 0.53 rating with 1.1 million total viewers for its second episode. Those are still decent levels for a cable show these days, and I am thinking it is leveraged on international financing and perhaps digital viewing, so consider it okay for now.

On Tuesday ABC’s Agents of SHIELD remained low at a 0.6 rating with 2.1 million total viewers as that one continues to look like it is in its final season unless Disney decides to keep it around a little longer to pad out its syndication package.  On Monday, NBC’s Timeless improved slightly to a 0.7 rating with three million total viewers, though that may be too-little-too-late for the low-rated show as its heads into its season finale on February 20th.

Charts: As expected, AMC’s The Walking Dead returned to all the charts with its mid-season premiere this past Sunday.  And I expect the show to remain in all three through the rest of the season.  Gotham, Lucifer, and Teen Wolf all dropped out last week as they are now on hiatus for the next few months.  MacGyver remained in the broadcast net Top 25 based on total viewers with its second straight week airing a new episode.