No surprises here: Syfy Channel announced today that it has given its new scripted sci-fi drama Defiance a second season.
The series has performed well in its four episodes aired so far, opening with 2.73 million viewers (Live + Same Day) for the 2-hour pilot last month. Normal post-hype erosion has brought the series down to 2.15 million viewers for Monday’s episode.
But Defiance certainly does its job in the key demographic of adults 18 to 49. The network said that, with DVR-delayed numbers in, the premiere was the second largest series premiere among that demo in network history. (The highest, if memory serves, would still be 2004’s bow of Stargate Atlantis.)
The companion video game has seen more than 1 million registered accounts to date.
Syfy has ordered another 13-episode season of Defiance, to air in 2014. Production begins in Toronto in August.
The show stars Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran, Jaime Murray, Graham Greene, and Mia Kirshner in a story set in the near future on a radically terraformed Earth.
Kevin Murphy will continue to serve as executive producer and showrunner, with Darren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin (Smallville) returning as executive producers. Michael Taylor will serve as a consulting producer.
The cable channel definitely needs a win here: It has reportedly invested tens of millions of dollars in the venture, not only to produce the television show but to help developer Trion Worlds get the MMO-RPG up and running. If ratings stay even passable, expect Syfy to try and amortize that investment over several seasons.
New episodes air Mondays at 9/8c on Syfy Channel! Follow Defiance over on our sister site, SciFi Stream.
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why these "today shows" has always just a couple episodes? like walking dead first season had 5 episode or 6. and this and saving hope has 13 ep why ?
I think you're confusing "today shows" with "cable shows". Because there are tons of "network shows" that have around 20 or more episodes per season (if they don't get canceled mid-season, of course).
Good to hear it is going to be around a while. I'm enjoying this show.
Just a couple of side notes here that I might add if possible. First being the million accounts registered for the game are across all media platforms. The game itself has fallen in popularity do to bugs,glitches and lack of exciting content. If you check the numbers of game chart sales you will see since this is not a pay per month gaming service this game has been a huge failure for the 40 million dollars Syfy invested into the project with Trion Worlds.
As for the show...They invested so much money into this and manged to have yet another week of 200,000 or more viewers turn it off(1.98 down from 2.15 on the 7th). As seen by the Nielsen ratings for the 13th of May 2013. Also it failed to win the demo of 18-49 passing that title to "Love & Hip Hop Atlanta" for yet another week in the same time slot. I hope they turn it around knowing they cut funding on shows over the last few years to make this happen but come on I'd rather have SGU/SGA/SG1 back over this declining trash heap of a show.
I have actually really enjoyed this show. It has strong characters and so many places that the writers can take it. The effects and the sets are very well done. I look forward to watching it every Monday night.
I'm actually looking forward to new episodes every week now... and THAT hasn't happened to me in a very long while, concerning any show that airs on Scuffy Channel.
Just as a random update to this Defiance story since my post on the 15th of May. The show dropped to 1.94 million as of the show of the 20th. Then the episode that aired on the 3rd of June only managed to pull 1.69 million viewers.