Ratings are in for the second episode of Stargate Universe, and the show continues to struggle to find its audience on Tuesday nights.
“Aftermath” drew an estimated 1.07 million viewers last night at 9 p.m. on Syfy, down 9 percent from its season premiere the previous week (1.175 million). That’s according to sources at PIFeedback.com.
But the premiere — “Intervention” — did quite well up in Canada last Friday, with a reported 16 percent increase over the June season finale for the SPACE network. Since ratings in the U.S. and Canada tend to trend about the same for SGU, that’s a sign that viewers here haven’t abandoned Stargate but instead failed to track the change to Tuesday night (or they’re recording it and choosing another favorite Tuesday show to watch live).
SGU faces big network competition on its new night, including the live results show for Dancing With the Stars (16.7 million viewers this week) and NCIS: Los Angeles (16.15 million this week).
The first DVR numbers will shed more light on the story when they are available in about two weeks’ time.
This week is also Universe‘s first Tuesday with a lead-out show, with the mid-season premiere of Caprica. The episode, titled “Unvanquished,” was watched live by 889,000 viewers. (Syfy’s lead-in for the night is a repeat of the previous week’s episode of SGU.)
That’s a new series low for Caprica — which is also airing on Tuesdays for the first time — as well as its second trip below the 1 million mark. Approximately 1.1 million watched the mid-season finale in March.
New episodes of Stargate Universe and Caprica continue next Tuesday starting at 9 p.m. E/P with an episode we’re very excited about, “Awakening.” If you don’t mind a few spoilers, learn more about it now in GateWorld’s Season Two episode guide!
And stay tuned to GateWorld all week long for our full coverage of “Aftermath!” We have episode analysis, the summary and transcript, podcast, a high-res screencap gallery, and Omnipedia updates on the way.
Very disappointing. I live in Canada so I have to wait until Friday to see the episode, but I think Syfy should move SGU back to Fridays (and Caprica) if it wants both shows to survive. They really can’t handle the Tuesday night competition.
I have a feeling SGU season 2 will be it’s final season. Unless they completely revamp the way they write episodes and move it to another day/time (Fridays for example).
Past couple of episodes have firmly estabilished my belief that SGU will henceforth be known as “Battlegate Voyager”. Those familar with the 3 aforementioned shows (BSG, Stargate, ST: Voyager), will understand why I view SGU like this.
Based on Canada’s succesful ratings, it seems that SGU would do better in its original Friday night time slots as opposed to this new arrangement. It seems cruicial that this change be reversed in order to ensure SGU’s continuance beyond its current season.
I’m shocked CAP and SGU had very good episodes I managed to catch them live and I wasn’t dissapointed, I wanna give a shout-out to peeps in canada keep tuning in we have an allied assault.
remember folks it’s only the few thousand people that have their viewing stats recorded. Also, no matter how good the episode that just aired is, it is a reflection of how well the previous episode did. The premier wasn’t fabulous, that is reflected in EP 2 ratings. Ep 2 was fabulous, so expect a jump in Ep 3 ratings
I’ve watched every episode of every show, and as much as I’ve loved the previous incarnations, SGU is such a step up. While the humor was great on the previous versions, everything was so cookie cutter, from the music to the effects to the way it was shot. The performances got me through a lot of cheeseball stories. I feel like, now, it’s become more of a grown up show. Yes, it has taken some things from Battlestar, but only the good. The sexuality isn’t as heavy, the morality tales aren’t as preachy. Politics is avoided (other than that of… Read more »
By they way, I for one am grateful for the desert scene. I was getting tire of every planet in they universe looking like Vancouver.
Perhaps they will have time to wrap up the story by the end of Season 2. Most shows don’t get that.
LOL!, way to shift the focus over with the “But enough about me, Have you heard how badly Caprica is Doing?” All this talk about Re-vamping, re-thinking, re-designing SGU.. How about Re-turning back to Atlantis, where They had obviously better ratings, and kept the Fandom together? Willing to bet good money that if the same effort is put forth, The fans will come back in droves, possibly even approaching the now Purely Mythical 1.6Mil + 1.6mil viewers.
Well, for the first time ever, I actually posted a decent review for an episode of SGU at “that other site”. I was fair and I actually liked it! But I also knew that the ratings would only uptick a bit, or follow the established pattern of the downward trend from season 1.0 and 1.5 Its obvious that TPTB have made some changes which improved this episode enough to keep me engaged in the story. It was dark, gritty and the special effects were great. But the trampling of the canon, the BSG-like “manifestations” of Rush’s wife and Franklin, the… Read more »
This pisses me off so much! This proves that the ratings are innacurate. I mean come on. There were so many tweets related to SGU, so much media coverage. COME ON! If this show gets cancelled a part of my soul will be destroyed. I’ve never felt this way about a TV show before. I just really really don’t want it to go away. GOD.
As the old selling addage goes “Location, Location, Location.” Tuesday night is not a good night for this network during the fall. If Sci-Fi (I just can’t bring myself to type the other name) wants these shows to get viewers, it should go back to a working formula that happened in Season 8 of SG1. Can anyone say “Sci-Fi Fridays”. SGU @ 8/7CT followed by Sanctuary @ 9/8CT followed by Caprica @ 10/9CT. Why this network is the home of WWE Smackdown I’ll never understand.
Wish it was on Fridays night again… i watch both SGU and Caprica that night. drove from work to home. watch it live doing my part.
The worst ratings of the entire Stargate franchise! All SG1 and SGA episodes had more viewers.
As usual it is the people that get paid the most money to perform that end up pulling the whole thing apart with bad decisions.
Those that run the marketing department at syfy channel should swallow their pride, admit they have stuffed up big time, and put the show back to a time slot that it can compete on.
SGU is a good show, far better than most of the garbage that does get to run more seasons, and needs a better chance to survive than what it is currently being given.
The 2 episodes so far this season have been just excellent. I liked the first season, but this,so far, in my opinion, is a huge step up in several ways.
You mean their strategy of giving the viewers what they don’t want isn’t paying off?
SGU was the first Stargate show I watched and it was because of Hulu. I saw the movie in 94 and thought it was great, but SG-1 was just to cheesy for me. I have since gone and watched all of SG-1 and Atlantis on Hulu and Netflix, but I still like SGU the best. I really enjoyed both BSG and Voyager, so if the show harkens back to two shows that are no longer on, then I’m alright with that. They need to figure in Hulu viewers and they also need a better system for determining live viewer ship.
and tuesday is fine with me, I just DVR whatever else is on. Plus, I was never home on friday nights anyway.
Sadly I knew this would be the case. Ratings are so innacurate because only a handful of people actually count. I hate to say it but if this continues this could be the last season.
I live in Canada and am happy to know that the ratings increased and i think that the only reason syfy has low ratings is because of the Tuesday night…everybody seems to know that so why the hell wont syfy move it already??
If american audience dislike so much SGU, please give the show only for the rest of the world.
It will survive easily…
They have only shown 2 episodes on Tuesdays, they are not going to move it again that quickly. People would really not be able to find it even if they wanted to.
And what day would they move it to? The rest of the week is pretty booked.
Part of the problem, at least here in Southern California is that many of us with HDTVs refuse to watch shows in Standard Def and SGU airs at 8pm on SyFy HD.. this puts it against the highest rated show, NCIS, which I am a huge fan of. Why they would put SGU against this show is incredible to me… SyFy HD needs to adjust their schedule so that it’s in sync with their SD channel OR move it back to Friday which was PERFECT!
Folks, let me remind everyone that ratings is by far not the only indicator of whether a show will get renewed or not. The renewal process of a TV series is very complicated today and also remember that this is only episode two of a 20 episode season that will stretch until the end of May. I would like to point everyone to a great article over at Airlock Alpha http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/7863/scifriday-dont-panic-over-ratings.html that talks about this very thing – taking a look at ratings across the board, a lot of shows have seen a drop (a lot of SF shows.
When you have two of your highest cost shows getting the lowest ratings on your network, and you have other, newer shows in development, why oh why would you keep them? You need to either lower the cost to you or they are gone. Simple economics.
Its official: The date doesn’t make a huge difference. If you pick a slow day you’ll have less competition. If you pick a popular day, you’ll have hard competition. Moving it back to Fridays won’t do any good and will only lose viewers through the flip flops of days.
I don’t have much else to add to this; I just wanted to say that I too think SGU would have done much better so far if it had been left in the Friday timeslot. I know Friday is the “typical sci-fi” day, in the mind of American media, and SGU’s move represents an attempt to gain some new audience base, but if you’ve got a good thing going why stop?
here’s a solution that I think will work in favor of all three of Syfy’s hit Fall show’s:
switch SGU/Caprica/Sanctuary with GhostHunters and air them back to back on Wednesday nights! I can’t think of any other hit shows that air on wednesday nights on other networks can you? If true, it would be a VERY good move on Syfy’s part!
oh, and put Ghost Hunters on either Tuesday or Friday nights and ditch all the stupid wrestling shows… PERMANENTLY! (or put the wrestling shows on a lo-ratings night)
It’s a pity because these first two episodes were both very good. ScyFy has not done a good job promoting the move to Tuesday. Hopefully the ratings will go up if it’s consistently good. When do they make the renewal decision around episode 10? The decision will be made long before the 20th episode.
What about those of us who don’t get Space channel (Canada) or Sci-Fi channel. I guess our viewership is not counted? Do the ratings count those who watch the show from the web?
Well what I think. Like playin games, most people just want to escape reality. In my case, I’am heavy interrested in scifi, want more focus on the scifi adventure part. Bit drama and charbuilding and conflict can enrich it a lot. But container ship load of it doesn’t work well. I don’t want excesive reminded how in realworld there are people who are very conflicting with each other. Most people have to deal with such people on work or family. Some people like that but are soap watchers and of that there is a lot off shows for. Eample I… Read more »
Based on the numbers, it seems to me that the hardcore Stargate fans are watching SGU on Tuesday nights but the less dedicated fans watch something else on Tuesdays. This only goes to show that TPTB would be wise to cater to the hardcore fans. That is what we hardcore fans have been telling them all along. But they just don’t want to listen as they have their own agenda. I recommend that the producers and the network focus on what the fans want. I further recommend returning all the Science Fiction shows (SGU, Caprica, Sanctuary, and Warehouse 13), back… Read more »
“But the premiere — “Intervention” — did quite well up in Canada last Friday”
So? And it did abysmally in the UK, only 237k people watched it.
No sugar coating, the show’s clearly flopping and excuses of the “bigger competition” and “people didn’t know it was on” won’t help. The show was doing badly on Frid. in its 2nd half, it’s doing badly now too. It’s no fluke, it’s a downward trend. The general public just doesn’t like what it is seeing.
FFS! MOVE IT BACK TO FRIDAY NIGHTS SYFY!
Based on the fact that the first 2 episodes were really good episodes (infact probabily the best episodes so far) syfy has made a major mistake of moving to tuesdays they should move back to fridays with sanctuary on at 8/7 stargate on at 9/8 and caprica on at 10/9 and in regards to katikatnik’s comment about the viewership numbers in the uk yeh they are bad but thats because alot more people have had the chance to watch through other means as in online 10 mins after its aired in the us a week before the uk and the… Read more »
I’ve been a long time reader of this site but only signed up to it and made occasional comments around the time SGA got cancelled. I gave SGU a chance, but could only force myself to watch as far as part 3 of the pilot. I’ve been following the story here ever since on gateworld. Any time I’ve attempted to watch SGU since (meaning downloading the episode) I haven’t been able to get past the “previously on SGU” part before closing and deleting the file. Now here’s the thing, I live in Australia and I could have told all the… Read more »
by the way i dont recieve sky 1 or any sky channel for that matter i watch all my shows online from stargate to smallville i wont pay the service as the pricing is ridiculous
I thought episode two was far better then episode one. Felt like it had more of a StarGate touch, not enough in my book but far better. The fact that they had to uncover after finding the gate. This felt like real style StarGate but just not using the science to get the gate working. I am hoping we see some real stuff but from what I see in the preview texts for the next episode. I really am hoping.
@ppatoc – “If american audience dislike so much SGU, please give the show only for the rest of the world. It will survive easily…” No, it wont. It costs too much to make and the only markets which can show a return in advertising and purchase of DVDs, products, etc are American. The Industry awards worth having are awarded by Americans. @ ALL those who keep saying the reason for the bad ratings is the move to Tuesdays: Warehouse 13 pulled in over 2 million viewers on Tuesday only two weeks ago, so the viewers are available. MILLIONS of viewers… Read more »
I found a review of someone, who watched “Intervention” without prior knowledge of the Stargate franchise.
http://news.scotsman.com/features/TV-review-Stargate-Universe.6566793.jp
He was completely confused and had no idea, what was going on. I think because of this, SGU won’t get new viewers. They can’t follow the plot without watching older episodes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “Could this possibly be the result of the much-unwanted “BSG-esque style” of SGU, “Semi-shaky cam” camera angles, ridiculously long hiatus located at just the right fan-killing time (middle of a season? really?), and not to mention those who are still sore of the treatment of SGA’s final moments by TPTB? Yes. Yes I think it could be. Combine this with the empty promises of two movies that we KNOW aren’t going to be made (Despite Brad’s “Never say never” attitude. They sold the props for god’s sake!) and I can completely… Read more »
Lackluster episode. Hoe-hum. You spend all this money for what? Blahzay acting and story. I don’t what day this show would air, it would not change anything. This show is not up to par as far as Stargate goes. But I fully expect BW to talk SciFy into another season. Well, not my money.
@psw yeh he might be confused but any1 in there right mind would go back and watch the first season its like watching the second part of a 2 parter of startrek voyager if u dont see the first part how the hell are you going to know wots going on you need all the information to understand it. also the previously bit at the beginning of each episode gives plenty of information about whats being happening, he just doesn’t understand it because its not something he wants to watch as he said he didn’t watch sg-1 or atlantis nor… Read more »
Come on. Face it folks. It’s not Tuesday night, it’s the SHOW and its following. Just not there. They gave the show tooo long of a break between seasons. I could not even remember by the season 2 premier how the last episode ended. Had it not been for my DVR set to “search and record SGU” from last season, I would not have known of its premier day. SG1 and Atlantis would do fine on Tuesday nights. Bring back Atlantis. Maybe now that the “Great Experiment” is over, and with the proper writing Atlantis could go for another 2… Read more »
@kenny Not going to happen since the Atlantis set is gone and some of the actors have moved onto other projects.
Unfortunately, you are absolutely correct :(
Oh and let’s not forget! The year is 2025 and the Producers have a ‘Plan Z’ to get those Stargate movies made :)
@ gary.j.leadbeater
My point was, that SGU isn’t a series, you can just start watching at a random episode in season 2. It is very hard to follow the plot without seeing previous episodes. Most people who stumble over a season 2 episode of SGU while zapping through the channels, won’t look up season 1. They will see SGU, be completely confused and decide to watch something else. Series with a lot of stand alone episodes don’t have the problem. SGU’s problem is shared by a lot of very serialized series.