#StarTrekDiscovery Gets Off To A Good Start
On Sunday, Star Trek: Discovery had its debut on CBS and pulled a 1.9 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 9.6 million total viewers (up from the 1.6 rating / 8.8 million total viewers reported in the preliminaries). That’s a good start for a show in the current Peak TV environment, and the numbers might have been a bit higher if not for the fifteen minute overrun of 60 Minutes. More importantly, CBS reported a record number of sign ups for its All Access streaming service where the show moves to now that it has had its broadcast premiere. So all indications at this point are that the show is off to a good start despite much grumbling from fans in the lead-up to its premiere.
Interestingly, FOX’s Trek-like comedy The Orville had better numbers in the demo on the two prior Sundays, pulling a 2.7 rating for its premiere and a 2.2 score for its second episode. Of course, it had a significant push from its NFL lead-in on both nights and when it moved to its regular Thursday timeslot is slipped to a 1.1 rating (still decent numbers for FOX on that night). But FOX does get to claim that it bested Star Trek with its first two installments of The Orville.
Star Trek: Discovery‘s survival from this point will be determined by its success on the CBS All Access streaming service, and the network will likely not share those numbers. But the early ratings and sign ups do show a promising start, and this is definitely a prestigious series to have on the service. My guess is that we can expect a second season of the show, though CBS may not make that announcement until much later in the season. And if the show does get the greenlight for a second year, it may not arrive until 2019.
Will The Adventure Continue For #TeenWolf?
MTV’s Teen Wolf wrapped up this past Sunday after six seasons and 100 episodes, but series creator Jeff Davis left the show with an open ending and the possibility of revisiting that world. He decided to end the show on the note “And the adventure continues . . .” and introduced a new character that could be the lead for a spin-off series. A potential continuation has been considered for a while and currently the creative team is working on pod-cast adventures with some of the characters from the show. A full-fledged TV series is not in the works at the moment, but MTV is currently mulling the possibility, so fans of the show should stay tuned.
Hope For Another Season Of #DarkMatter Appears To Be At An End
Fans have been campaigning hard since Syfy announced the cancellation of of its space series Dark Mater, but a recent blog post by series co-creator Joseph Mallozzi indicated that hope of a continuation was at an end. He had been exploring options for the show to be picked up by another venue, but he claims in the post that the “final option has proven unworkable due to contractual issues”. He didn’t go into detail, but his comments suggested that Dark Matter will remain cancelled. He did suggest that the story might continue in comics (where the franchise actually began), and he is currently exploring that possibility. Whether fans will continue with their campaign to keep the show alive remains to be seen, but Mallozzi seems to have accepted that another season will not be airing on television.
Ratings Results Of Interest: ‘Outlander’, ‘Teen Wolf’ Improve
On Sunday, Starz’s Outlander improved to a 0.34 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 1.6 million total viewers as that show continues to out-pace its Season 2 numbers. It has already been renewed for a fourth season. Over on AMC, Fear the Walking Dead held mostly steady with a 0.75 rating and 2.1 million total viewers. It has already been renewed for a fourth season. MTV’s Teen Wolf jumped up to a 0.37 rating with 676K total viewers for its series finale, which are the best numbers that show has seen since its fifth season. TNT’s The Last Ship held a steady course at a 0.34 rating with 1.5 million total viewers. That one has already been renewed for a fifth season. And
I covered the Monday through Thursday ratings (including The Orville‘s Thursday debut) in Friday’s This Week In Sci-Fi TV post, and be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site throughout the week for the latest ratings results. If you have a question about the ratings and/or status of a particular show, ask me in the comments section below.
Cancelled Too Soon: ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ (2001)
The fourth live action Trek spin-off lasted for four seasons, but that was less than the seven year runs enjoyed by the three previous spin-offs, and the plan had been to match those. But Enterprise entry never quite caught on, and the show struggled in the ratings throughout its four year run. When its fate looked quite grim after its third season, fans launched a letter-writing campaign. UPN did renew it for a fourth season, though how much the campaign impacted that decision is uncertain. But the numbers continued to slide, in part because the show was moved to Friday nights, and also because of frequent preemptions. UPN then decided to cancel the show after its fourth year, but fans started up another campaign which included such efforts as a drive to raise money to fully fund the fifth season and an appeal to Congress (!) to ask for a renewal (Trek fans are nothing short of fanatic). This however was not enough to change the mind of UPN executives (perhaps fans should have gone all the way to the president!), and the franchise was put on hiatus until J.J. Abrams rebooted it with his 2009 film.
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci-Fi TV Twitter Site for daily ratings results as well as breaking news and updates.
