Coming as no surprise, Syfy has cancelled its space opera series Vagrant Queen after one season. That series debuted to poor ratings in March and saw its numbers slip even further during its first few airings. After its third episode it was shifted from Fridays at 10 PM EST to Thursday at 11 PM EST, out of Prime Time. Hollywood Reporter claims that was an attempt to boost ratings because the network has had some success in the later hours with shows like The Great Debate and the TZGZ animated block. But the last time Syfy bumped one of its live-action scripted series out of Prime Time (Hunters in 2016) it served as a burn-off run leading up to cancellation. Vagrant Queen did see a slight episode-over-episode improvement in the ratings when it first moved to Thursdays, but going from a 0.04 rating (four one-hundredths of a rating point) to a 0.05 (based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic) is hardly something to by happy about.
Vagrant Queen is an acquired show for Syfy and the only way the network makes money is from the advertising which is driving by the same-day viewing numbers. The move from Fridays to Thursday out or Prime Time was more likely driven by the low ratings and acted as an indication that network execs had lost faith in the show. This is one of only three scripted shows that aired on the network during the 2019-20 season and the second to get cancelled (along with The Magicians). The other show, Van Helsing, was renewed for a fifth and final season. At this point, Syfy has very little in the way of original series on its upcoming schedule and appears to be following other networks like USA in a shift away from scripted-programming. Vagrant Queen developed a small fan-following during its short run and they may attempt a Call to Action to get the series picked up by another venue.
Vagrant Queen follows a woman who is the heir to the throne but who is on the run at the edge of the galaxy from people in the Republic government who want to see her dead. It stars Adriyan Rae, Tim Rozon, Alex McGregor, and Paul du Toit and is based on the Vault comic of the same name by Magdalene Visaggio.
There are still more renewal and cancellation announcements on the way for shows such as AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere and Freeform’s Siren. You can see the status of all the currently airing, returning, and upcoming sci fi and fantasy shows on our Cancellation Watch Page. And be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
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We all knew it was going to happen. Surprisingly, I don’t actually feel anything about that show being cancelled. I’m just numb, which shows that I really didn’t care about it. That article just reminded me of Hunters though. I think I only watched the first episode of Hunters, I don’t remember much about it so I’m going to check it out.
I’ll say it – Good Riddance.
The only unfortunate thing about this whole affair will be that the idiots in suits getting six or seven figure salaries for doing nothing of value at ‘syfy’ will use the viewership numbers on this garbage series to say “See? We told you nobody’s interested space based adventure series “
I’d really like to see what their thought process was. I expected after moving it to 11:00 on Thursday they’d cancel the day of the last episode. I wonder what they were looking at to salvage the series and get other revenue from it.
It wasn’t Olympus levels of bad, but it was one of the worst shows I’ve seen. I think episodes 5-7, or 6-8 were pretty decent but on the whole it was a complete waste of the talents of the 4 lead actors.
I’m not going to say “good riddance”, because it was a lot better than Hunters in 2016. I wouldn’t have minded another season or two, because in the end it was at least a lot of fun, but—compared to e.g. Dark Matter & Killjoys—that was never enough to now miss it all of a sudden.