FOX is Holding One Episode of The Orville Until Season 2
FOX’s space comedy series The Orville will be wrapping up its first season on December 7th, and those people counting the episodes will realize that brings the total to twelve, not the thirteen promised. But that is not a reason to be concerned–though perhaps annoyed–as that episode will get carried over to the show’s second season. Allegedly, scheduling was the issue because FOX wanted to air the full first season in Fall and not carry over one or two eps to January (remember that The Orville got off to an early start this season). I also wonder if they got behind on production–this is an sfx-heavy show–and knew that they could not complete all thirteen episodes in time for them to air in 2017. It doesn’t seem like it would be that much of a stretch to air the season finale the following week if all the episodes were completed. In any case, the episode will get carried over to next year similar to what Lucifer did by bringing over four Season 2 episodes to the current season. And since The Orville is a very episodic show, airing that episode later will not throw off any story arcs, but it will leave fans wanting more when the current season ends.
Silence on Between is Not a Good Sign
It has been nearly a year and a half since Between streamed its second season on Netflix, and there is still no word on a third-year renewal. At this point, it is seeming likely that we can consider the door to be closed on any continuation of the story. The show never gained much attention in the States, and its Canadian network City TV has given no indication that they plan to keep it going without Netflix as a partner. According to Wikipedia, the show scored well in viewership up north during its first season, but there is no information on the audience size for its second year. Between did wrap up many of the show’s storylines by the end of its second season, though it did set up an all-new arc with the final episode. But considering the length of time since its second season wrapped and the fact that the actors are likely looking for other job opportunities, I’m thinking that another season of this one is unlikely. Instead, it will become yet another Peak TV entry that simply fades away and leaves fans hanging on for some sort of resolution.
Ratings Results of Interest: Thanksgiving Week Doldrums, Crossover Rebound
A lot of shows were preempted last week due to the holiday (and the ratings results were delayed), and many of the ones that aired new episodes experienced season or near season lows, especially the broadcast network entries. On Monday, FOX’s Lucifer and The Gifted slipped to a 0.9 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic, though The CW’s Supergirl managed to hold steady at a 0.5 rating. On Tuesday, The Flash slipped to a 0.8 rating while Legends of Tomorrow held at a 0.5 rating. All other broadcast net genre entries were preempted for the week with the exception of Supernatural and Arrow which both aired episodes on Thanksgiving Day. But that resulted in series lows for both shows as they managed just a 0.3 score each for the night.
On Wednesday, Spike’s The Shannara Chronicles and IFC’s Stan Against Evil both had their second season finales with the former pulling a 0.8 rating with 248K total viewers and the latter managing a 0.06 rating with 173K total viewers. The numbers for Stan Against Evil I believe should be okay because that is only slightly below the levels that got it renewed last year. But The Shannara Chronicles will have to hope that international backing and a Call to Action from fans will keep it alive because it is seriously under-performing for its network.
On Sunday, AMC’s The Walking Dead improved some from its season low the prior week pulling a 3.6 rating with 8.3 million total viewers. I expect that one to start building up for its Fall finale which will be on December 10th.
On Monday, the first two installments of the “Crisis on Earth X” four-series crossover brought Supergirl and Arrow (airing on a special night) up to season highs. Based on the preliminaries, both shows came in at a 0.9 rating which is much better than the 0.5 score they have been averaging thus far this season. Expect both The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow to see nice ratings boosts for Tuesday, and I should have those numbers up on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site later this morning. You can see the full ratings results for the week at this link.
