Yesterday’s new episode of Stargate Universe picked up significantly in the ratings, with more than 1 million viewers tuning in to “Epilogue” — perhaps helped by SGU‘s new pairing with Sanctuary, starring former SG-1 actress Amanda Tapping. But Sanctuary‘s move from Friday to Monday dealt a major blow to its own ratings.
“Epilogue” drew an estimated 1.092 million viewers to Syfy at 9 p.m. on Monday night (“Live + Same Day”), up 27 percent from the previous week.
Sanctuary didn’t fare so well at 10 p.m., with just 868,000 viewers. That’s comparable to SGU‘s numbers at 9 and 10 o’clock this spring, but a far cry (39 percent, to be exact) from what Sanctuary was doing on Friday nights just three days earlier.
Last Friday the show gained 17 percent over its mid-season premiere with 1.424 million viewers, holding on to about half of WWE Smackdown‘s 2.825 million.
This goes a long way in supporting our theory that, for the average Syfy viewer, it’s not so much the show as the night that it is airing — and that whichever of the network’s three dramas they kept on Friday nights back in October would be the one to keep its ratings up in “renewal” territory.
Fortunately for Sanctuary, Syfy has already renewed it for a fourth season — and it certainly could return to the Friday night anchor spot when it returns in the fall.
Monday night on the big networks saw 4.07 million viewers for The Chicago Code in FOX’s 9 p.m. time slot. CBS aired repeats of The Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly, with 7.68 million and 7.86 million viewers, respectively. NBC limped along with 4.62 million for the sci-fi-ish series The Event (which is actually a notable improvement for that show).
But the victor for the night was once again ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, which crushed the 90 minutes from 8-9:30 p.m. with over 22 million viewers. That was followed by the sitcom Better Than You at 9:30, with 11.2 million.
Syfy’s line-up also faced an NBA play-off game this week, which averaged 3.35 million for TNT.
Don’t miss the penultimate episode of Stargate Universe next Monday! “Blockade” airs at 9/8c on Syfy in the United States, followed by a new episode of Sanctuary.
“it’s not so much the show as the night that it is airing”
Yep.
That quote really does say it all. Looks like putting Sanctuary on Monday was a good experiment to test the theory. Good enough, now put them both back.
So, MGM and SyFy, recall the escape pods. Let’s get back to work! Recall what cast you can and set a timeline to restart SGU … say in a year or two. Bring in an all-star cast to kick-start the interest. It can be done! Make it so!
Er, they already have an all-star cast, in my book.
Friday has always been Syfy’s most successful night, with double episodes of two or three original series that night. So the move was never going to be helpful. But Common Descent and Epilogue have been the best SGU episodes so far, so I think this week’s uptick can be explained both by Sanctuary’s lead in and viewers wanting to catch the continuation of the story started the week before. After losing viewers in season 1 due to focusing on personal drama rather than scifi, and Syfy’s horrible scheduling (seriously, a 4 month hiatus?), moving it for season 2 practically guaranteed… Read more »
Can you get the raitings for the show Sancturary was bumped for by any chance?
Does Syfy want Sanctuary out too? I guess Monday is the slaughterhouse where Syfy takes shows it wants gone. Will Syfy be smart enough to take its two biggest shows back to Friday for a one-two punch? Probably not, they don’t do SciFi anymore, they do wrestling.
[…] episode, the continuation of last week’s ‘Common Descent‘ episode. Ratings were up 27% over last week’s episode. SGU: Epilogue aired Mon 25 Apr 2011 on […]
Seriously?? Childbirth 5 times over in 60 seconds was just wrong. I was upset that sgu was canceled, but with half the episodes ending with some horrid song and the lack of anything scifi… I can’t even form words this is just a very big disappointment. They should have just took the stargate and put it on One life to live if they wanted a drama show… and lets put it on during the day since its basicly a soap. Listen i’m some one who likes 98% of all scifi, I even liked enterprise and voyager.. just saying if I… Read more »
This episode was superior to similar episodes done in other sci fi shows, like ENT’s E2.
Or DS9’s Children of Time.
I don’t want more SGA – I want more SGU. Last nights episode was not only top qulity Stargate but also top quality Sci-Fi. As for ratings it’s quite obvious that w/e series has the lead in of WWE will receive the best ratings…
*headdesk* I don’t understand the thinking of any of the networks right now. Why do they feel the need to “compete” by pitting shows against each other in the same time slots when there are plenty of time slots during the week when there is NOTHING ON. I don’t understand why everyone sticks ALL their good shows into the same spot. For crying out loud, I often have THREE THINGS I’m watching all on at the SAME TIME, especially on Thursday nights, but the rest of the time there’s nothing (not that this affects anything in terms of numbers since… Read more »
“it’s not so much the show as the night that it is airing”
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
Sanctuary has never gotten stellar ratings, but they’ve never been bad– until now that is. :( Pax wasn’t so bad compared to this train wreck, in fact I’d rather have the ratings for Pax than this. IF and that’s a big IF, it does rebound, I can’t see it going up at much, and Castle last night was a repeat. Ratings like this can never happen again, tonight was just embarrassing, for the show, the cast and crew, and the fans, and it breaks my heart that happened. SGU did have great ratings, and they started to go down, even… Read more »
Is anybody surprise? I almost forgot it was on because I JUST watched an episode on Friday. Changing your date drastically in the middle of a run like that makes no sense, and you will almost ALWAYS loose lots of viewers who will still expect it to be on during its regular time. Sanctuary is about the only show in recent memory that I can think of where the show changed the day in the MIDDLE of a set of episodes. The only other show I can think of is No Ordinary Family which changed to Saturdays. It would have… Read more »
They are still airing Sanctuary on Fridays on Syfy. It is just a repeat of Mondays episode.
Glad to see the ratings slide upward but it’s truly of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. To address the 1 overly critical remark about the episodes quality and proclaiming we “all” want more SGA however; i really don’t. I mean i’d take it but really want i want is more SGU. Last nights episode was not only top quality Stargate but also top quality science fiction. This season has been fantastic and it’s sad to see the show cast aside with it’s creativity finally shining through. Back to the numbers however it goes w/o saying that whichever… Read more »
@Browncoat1984 Very well said. It always did good on Fri, some nights it did very good, and it’s first night on Mon it– it hurts to even think about it. :( What happened tonight DOES NOT reflect on the show, it’s the move, Syfy knew the risks, and it still did it. I also knew they’re be a drop, and but I didn’t think it’d crash and burn. The situation is completely different now, the show always bounced back on Fri, they’d go from high to not so high rating, now it’ll being back from low to low. If the… Read more »
It is sad, because Hollow Earth arc is over and show is awesome again.
Sorry, but sometimes I honestly think you people actually do live on another planet. Some of the quotes here just show a total lack of understanding of how things work on a network. I’m sad it’s died too, but seriously – think about what you’re saying…
I agree with you professorhenryjonesjr, most of us don’t understand the bone headed decisions the management of these stations make. SGU’s ratings dropped in the 1st half of season 2 because they put it on a stupid timeslot, had they left it on a Friday night, likely it would have improved as people recognised the improvements that had been made. I didn’t like the constant fighting amongst the crew either, or the stupid songs that were completely out of place in the show, and include immoral use of someone elses body via the stones. The fact remains that they listened… Read more »
@captainstorm its obvious your completely bias for Atlantis and hate the fact that (as you see it) Atlantis was cancelled so they could bring in SGU. Buy had they kept Atlantis and aired SGU right after it like they did with SG1 to Atlantis you’d be telling a different story. So just so everyone is clear mr I like 98% of all scifi is still Pissed that Atlantis was cancelled and that’s why he hates SGU and its him and fans like him. If you can call them fans. Are the reason the entire Stargate franchise has been shelved!
@Jedi40: There is currently a rerun of Monday’s episode scheduled for 11 p.m. on Friday (outside of primetime), but so far that’s not continuing into May.
@Browncoat1984: It is mathematically possible for Stargate to gain viewers and rate higher than Sanctuary if the shows’ audiences don’t entirely overlap — i.e. if some viewers normally watch Sanctuary (part of their 868,000) but not SGU.
@TheAdmiral: We’ll definitely be watching to see how Urban Legends performs in the post-wrestling time slot this Friday, and report it next week.
Every 10-15 mins or so, Syfy is getting ravaged by comments on their Facebook page “Save SGU” “Frack you SyFy” “Why have you moved Sanctuary” etc etc etc
Surely they must realise what they have done? I don’t understand the mentality of it..
SyFy is a joke like the whole Universal.
They killed Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and now SGU. Im done with that company.
SGU is epic!
(Humming Crash Bandicoot theme now; will be with me for several days!)
if they would go back to friday nights and take off wwe they wouldnt be axing SGU and now sancuary is suffering give me a break. TAKE OFF WWE and give us our friday nights back please
Urban Legends is a poor rehash of Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed that was on The Learning Channel / The Discovery Channel
I liked Epilogue, but not because it was sci-fi because it wasn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, simply being on a ship or on another planet does not make it sci-fi. I liked last night’s episode because it spoke of the camaraderie of the crew. For once, the over-saturated, unrealistic drama was set aside. The dissenter was treated like the outcast rather than as the order of the day. That was it’s biggest appeal. People actually got along. For the first time since the show started, there wasn’t a part that made me think that the… Read more »
Can we please drop the whole “Atlantis was killed for SGU! Bring back Atlantis!”? Its been more than TWO years people, NOTHING is coming back, its ALL gone. Why can’t the haters recognize that we are ALL Stargate fans whether we like SG-1, SGA or SGU? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of hate in the Star Trek fandom, whether you like TOS, TNG, DS9, Voy or Ent. Sure, people will say one show was terrible but certainly they don’t say that others are stupid for liking it and that everyone had to conform to THEIR views. Stargate’s… Read more »
@Browncoat1984 Remember what Brad Wright said about the angry atlantis fans …. that’s why this arguing is always pursuing. “I don’t think if we for any reason go away, it is an issue necessarily of the quality of the product that we’ve been making. I think getting moved on the schedule has hurt us. And the fact that some of the fans that liked SG-1 and Atlantis were so angry that they have deliberately hurt us, which is unfortunate.” – Brad Wright
How is watching the histories of alternate versions of the crew created via time paradox not sci-fi. And yes, until we have actual space ships with people traveling faster than light to other planets then any show that does so is sci-fi. SGU IS sci-fi, Epilogue was a very sci-fi episode. @captainstorm, it’s sad that you can be upset about the creation of life i.e. and episode showing 5 births but seem to have no problem with several Jaffa getting shot point blank by machine guns. It’s a sad state when the only way someone can consider something sci-fi is… Read more »
I thought the episode was pretty good even being a ripped off storyline that I’ve personally seen in at least two other series. Has anyone else put the connection together that we now know the seed ships are at least two thousand years ahead of the destiny. Seems like a stretch considering how similar a seed ship and destiny are. But that’s stargate for you. They never were very good at continuity. Even David Blue mentioned that in an interview once at the end of the first season. I think this show could be the basis for a relaunch of… Read more »
@Skiznot – Because there was no focus on how they got there or any scientific aspect of it. Just ‘strange things happen with gates and solar flares’. And until they give a plausible explanation of how the FTL drive works, even if only within the stargate universe, it’s fantasy, not sci-fi. They’ve done nothing to deal with the science of it. It may as well be magic (ie Clarke’s third law). It was a really good episode..just not sci-fi. What I don’t understand is why there’s such a need for it to be considered sci-fi. It doesn’t have to be… Read more »
So if the last two episodes do really good will that mean that they may continue SGU?
@blackcat124gt – The decision of whether or not SGU would continue was made several months ago. The ratings will have no effect on this.
Stargate is officially coming to an end… With the last 2 episodes left… There’s nothing else besides the literature books. I’m not a huge fan of creating the images in my head so I doubt I’ll be reading up on those. Stargate Alliance never made it past development and died early. Stargate Worlds made it to closed beta (Got to try it btw) but died. Stargate Resistance (also beta) died fast… It’s official… Stargate is finally coming to an end D:
Epilogue wasn’t stellar because the Amish looked Pissed me off big time—sure it played will to the story, but I hated it. But I watched it though, and after watching all those BIRTHS, I realized that what I was seeing wasn’t a bit of us spending most our lives living in an Amish paradise, but, it showed the progression of a destitute few, becoming an astounding, almost Alteran like majority. Everybody hooked up and seeded the gene pool, it was so cool. And Camila got to live long enough to share something as well; her words of Wisdom. But Brody,… Read more »
Why can’t people accept this is it? It is dead. They will NOT renew SGU now, whatever the ratings of these final episodes. Last I heard, the sets had been taken down.
sell the franchise to someone else. mgm seems to not want to do anything with stargate anymore, so let another company make the movie for the fans!
about sanctuary’s ratings…
let’s see if they can improve on mondays, before throwing in the towel.
I was an SG-A,-1 whiner last year. I ended up really liking SGU, never missed an episode, and really enjoyed Epilogue.
I’ll be sad to see it go.
I’ll be sad to lose Sanctuary after next year. I’ll have 3 shows left I care about on SyFy, but I’m not watching any new ones. Most of my attention is going towards new content on TNT, FX, A&E (catch up on Rubicon if you haven’t seen it, that one is intense) these days.
SyFy can go … wrestle itself.
SGU was just getting interesting, though it was missing some off the humor of the other SG’s, and needed more interaction with other species..BUT IT HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Even one more season to tie up loose ends and turn it from a good show to a great show.
Imperious.. You seem to totally have missed the things I pointed out about SGU that have made it a horrid show. Also i’m not sure how the fact that i’m an atlantis fan leads to the end of the stargate series. I’m sure you probably like BSG too which would make sense since SGU is filmed in the same format. For the record I don’t like BSG ether. I beleive BSG was the beginning of the end for all scifi shows. They did good for 1 season and all the sudden the networks thought thats how scifi should be filmed.… Read more »
I’m sorry Imperious, I ment this post for Starscapesg1.. I usally just read on here and don’t post much but with Syfy’s Cancelation StarGate I’m not too happy.
Come down off that pedestal. You’re being single minded, and making some utterly outrageous generalizations. You claim that there’s some sort of band wagon, that “the networks thought thats how Sci-Fi should be filmed”. Now I interpret this in two ways: That these “networks” (which ones precisely?) felt that good Sci-Fi took place on space ships, where the inhabitants are forced to fend for themselves. Alternatively, you could mean that Sci-Fi shouldn’t just be about technobabble and technological speculation, but about asking moral and ethical questions that are relavant to the situations present in our own time. The former I… Read more »
@Excalibur – Amen about the intro. The last Star Trek did this too in an attempt to be contemporary they replaced the traditional intro with a stupid song. I missed having a theme song I could hum to myself with Enterprise and I miss it with Stargate Universe too, especially since the rest of the music of the series, like all of Joel’s work for Stargate has been brilliant…unlike Star Trek, which with the exception of Best of Both Worlds has had terribly music in the TV series (except the main themes). In fact, I used to think that Trek… Read more »
Still with the excuses. SGU’s ratings were plummetting on Fridays, thats why it was moved and they still plummetted on Wednesdays when other shows thrived!. The show is one of the most expensive shows on Syfy and it needed better ratings than it was getting and it wasn’t getting them on fridays or wednesdays. But SGU was never going to get the ratings that Brad wanted – remember he hoped for 1.6 million viewers MORE than SGA and thats what he probably promised MGM and Syfy. But SGU couldn’t increase its audience on any night and that is down to… Read more »
Perhaps they should air the episodes every night of the week and see how that goes? Surely someone would record it if they’re not going to be in to watch it. Dur!
If only they would include torrent downloads – at least to see how many people have been downloading the episode. Oh but wait, TV executives are still the dinosaurs of our age.
@0s1r1s – Or maybe the tv executives are smart enough to realize that people downloading the product online for free doesn’t pay the cost of making the show. Syfy cancelled the show because it wasn’t making THEM money. MGM let go of the show because no one else was willing to pay THEM money to make it. The actors and writers looked for other jobs because THEY were no longer going to be paid to do it. See a trend here? See why people downloading torrents means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things? Popular downloading and a dollar… Read more »
i knew this was going to happen!!! why are the doing this to sanctuay?!! it was doing so darn well on friday nights. these bozos are never going to learn, are they? they killed sga, they killed sgu, and they are now killing sanctuary. i hope amanda talks to them and maybe they can place the show back on fridays nights. ugh!!!