Whether you blame the show or blame the scheduling (or a little of both), there’s one reason why Syfy Channel decided to drop Stargate Universe: the show couldn’t pull in enough viewers in its new Tuesday night time slot. How well do you think it will do tonight?
While an eleventh-hour renewal is all but impossible, the show will at least have the benefit of trying out another timeslot when it returns tonight to launch its final 10 episodes. “Deliverance” airs at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
It will be the first time that a Stargate series had aired on Mondays. The Tuesday experiment proved a colossal failure for Syfy, which ended up cancelling both of its Tuesday night lab rats — SGU and Caprica. Stargate had the deck stacked against it: no lead-in show (and, in November, no lead-out either), and programmed against the network juggernauts Dancing With the Stars and NCIS: Los Angeles. Both of those series averaged around 16 million viewers (Live + Same Day) every week. NBC’s The Biggest Loser and FOX’s sitcom due were no slouches, either.
But even when the competition took the night off — for election night news coverage, for example — SGU wasn’t able to capitalize much and gain viewers.
Stargate‘s new Monday night competition includes:
ABC: Castle (repeat tonight)
CBS: Hawaii Five-0 (repeat)
NBC: Harry’s Law (new)
FOX: Local news
Castle was watched live by an average of 10.15 million viewers last week, while Hawaii Five-0 drew about 7.23 million for a repeat. 9.15 million tuned in for Harry’s Law.
Compared with two shows north of 16 million, the competition may be a little easier on struggling cable shows. Sci-fi genre fans will no doubt be attracted to Castle‘s Nathan Fillion and Five-O‘s Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) and Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica), though.
So, what’s your ratings prediction for tonight’s premiere of Stargate Universe? The first half of the season averaged 1.078 million viewers, leaving off with 1.094 million for “Resurgence” (story). The show has a lead-in now with Being Human (1.41 million viewers last week) … but is it enough to overcome viewers’ animosity at the network and lessened inclination to watch a cancelled show?
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My big concern is that not everyone knows about the day/time change, let alone the the show is returning to finish the season.
Not that competition matters anymore. But let's face it. For all it's good points if the creators had not made a grand experiment out of Stargate, we still might have a show. But they mis-read the people and the demographics, and tried to appeal to a younger group whilst alienating the longstanding fans of the franchise.
I really never cared about the show that much even though I have seen almost all the eps so far, but it is sad to see it go none-the-less.
I hope SyFy has learned a little about television ratings by now. Stop churning out vampire sex shows (the vampire thing is over, get a clue) and sleeze sci-fi, and maybe you will get an audience again that is interested in something other that sex (for ratings), wrestling and HyppoRaptor attacks Vancouver. Just say'n
I hope tonights show has nothing to do with a river trip that meets up with some hillbilly people.
I Will buy the DVDs. The show is fantastic!
Wouldn't it be funny if Universe does collosal numbers on Monday especially during this time because no offense but my DVR shuts off at 9pm on Mondays. This is actually a kick ass time. If it does really well I wonder would SyFy put money back into it? I doubt it because they have new shows in the pipeline waiting for that precious time but if it does stellar numbers two movies have to be greenlit based on that right?
@saxgod
"If it does really well I wonder would SyFy put money back into it?"
Please don't get my hopes up. :|
I would think you'd only get a subset of the people who were still following the series at this point. I think the Live + 7 was about 1.5 million at the end of Season 2.0?? I honestly don't see how they are going to get new viewers hooked into it now. Being Human as moderate numbers as a lead in, but nothing spectacular.
I think with two major networks in reruns we could get 1.22 million. Would be nice to see a bump up from the midseason finale.
I'm an avid follower of Castle and Hawaii Five-0, so I'm happy that tonight both are repeats. Also both shows are winding down their seasons. I hope SGU makes a big enough impact for a DVD-Movie or Mini to be made ala Farscape.
I'm a fan of both Castle and SGU, so I was a little torn when I learned that SGU would be in the same time slot as Castle. However I will be watching SGU during the air time, mainly because Castle is available next day on Hulu while SGU has that 8 day delay.