The Story Will Continue For Several More Years For #StrangerThings
Netflix’s paranormal series Stranger Things is headed to its second season this October, and according to its creators the Duffer brothers, a third season of the show is already set (though Netflix has not made an official announcement yet) with a fourth likely as well. At this point, the Duffers are thinking that four seasons would be a good point to cap off the series, which makes some since considering its child actors will keep growing up and the show has significant production time between seasons. I’m thinking that we can bank on that third season promise even though Netflix has not officially confirmed it, and will have to see if this one stops after only four years. It has been one of the streaming service’s most popular original series, so they may want it to stick around longer (possibly follow the kids into college). The second season of Stranger Thingsdebuts on October 27th. (You can see the preliminary schedule of Fall sci fi and fantasy shows here.)
Ratings Results Of Interest: #TheLastShip Starts Slow For Season 4
On Sunday, TNT’s The Last Ship returned for its fourth season with a double-episode that averaged a 0.32 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic and 1.8 million total viewers. That is down notably from the 0.51 average it had last Summer and gets the show off to a slow start. It has already been renewed through a fifth season, but don’t be surprised if TNT announces that as its last at some point. On HBO, Game of Thrones slipped a bit from its record numbers last week to a 4.7 rating with 10.2 million total viewers. Bet on that one setting new highs with its season finale on Sunday, though.
On Friday on Syfy, Killjoys slipped to a 0.15 rating based on the demo with 623K total viewers, matching its season low ratings mark. And Dark Matter remained on the low side with a 0.14 rating and 642K total viewers. I am still believing that both of these will get the fourth season nod, but some support from fans on the social networks could definitely help them out.
I covered the early week ratings in Saturday’s This Week In Sci-Fi TV post, and you can keep up with the latest ratings results at the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.
Scorecard: Broadcast Network Summer Sci Fi Shows Not Ranking High In The Scorecard
CBS’ Salvation is currently at Number 30 in the Cancellation Watch Scorecard which is slightly better than Zoo (same network) at Number 38, though the numbers for the former series have been tracking downward while the latter show as seen some improvement of late. ABC’s Somewhere Between is near the bottom of the list at Number 67 which is to be expected based on its poor ratings performance. NBC’s Midnight Texasis currently at Number 31 and it might survive into a second season if its ratings can hold or improve over the next few weeks. Most of the rest of the movement on the scorecard was just incidental and you can see the full rankings here.
Cancelled Before It Began: Marvel’s Most Wanted (2016)
Marvel’s Most Wanted would have been a spin-off from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. following recurring characters Bobbi Morse (aka Mockingbird) and Lance Hunter (aka Dominic Fortune) who go on the run after a price is put on their heads. Development on this began in 2015 with a short, proof-of-concept reel and the thinking was that the show might might make it to the mid-season 2015-16 schedule. ABC passed at that point but kept the project in development and the buzz was that it had a good chance of getting the greenlight for the 2016-17 season.
A full pilot for Marvel’s Most Wanted was produced in 2016 and it looked like a good bet to get picked because of the popularity of its central characters and it seemed like a less costly option than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep the Avengers franchise alive on television, especially considering the latter show’s flagging ratings. But instead, ABC decided to keep AoS going into a fourth season (likely eyeing the 88 episode threshold that the syndication market prefers for an encore run) and passed on the pilot (they also cancelled Agent Carter after its second season). There was still come talk at that point about redeveloping the MMW concept, but we have unfortunately seen no further development on that front. (You can read more about the development of Marvel’s Most Wanted at its Wikipedia entry.)
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci-Fi TV Twitter Site for daily ratings results as well as breaking news and updates.
