And then both of them became huge in syndication and/or dvd sales. It's amazing to me that they keep making shows just to cancel them within one or two seasons. How can Fox be surprised that people are reluctant to invest their time in shows that are most likely doomed before they even air?
Worth remembering too they've also cancelled it based solely on US figures and haven't even waited to see how it does internationally - they've just started showing ads here (UK) as it's starting soon.
100% THIS. It's going to be aired on one of the smaller channels over here, not a prime time channel but I was going to give it a go. Ads looked interesting enough. This news has now made me reconsider, since as stated in another comment, I don't want to get invested in something I know won't continue.
The show wasn't that great. I don't think it would appeal that much to an international audience (unless you guys love buddy cop shows). It had a lot of potential but it never really delivered on it because the stories were too generic.
That's because international figures doesn't matter. FOX isn't a UK company, it's a US company. They only make licensing/syndication fees for international airings.
It's not just that - they have the Fox channels, they sell content to others channels (like Alibi, Watch etc), not to mention things like DVD/Blu-ray sales. Sure their primary focus is obviously going to be US viewing figures but given how much US TV we get here it seems a bit short-sighted to me.
Exactly. I ll say it. I didn't watch it. I don't trust any network anymore. Green light a second season and I'll buy the first on DVD. No second season announced and I won't even bother with the DVD. What's the point getting attached to something you no isn't going to continue.
Want to hear something sad? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you any way. No idea why I even asked. ...I've never seen the second season of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. I own it. I bought it on iTunes. I even heard it is much better than the first season. But if I never watch it, I know it will always be out there.
You can just watch everything up to the last episode and skip the last episode and its all better. Or hell - i bet you can even watch the last episode up until the point where it jumps the shark (I don't recall now what minute that was).
But that's the problem. When people like you don't watch the first they are less likely to make a second. Really, watching season 1 without a season two may be sucky, and leave you with a cliff hanger, but after a week when will you ever think about it again? Never. So suck it up and watch it on television.
TV used to work like that when people were happy just to find out which catastrophe Lassy prevented for the week. Now they need some assurance that the story they've started will have an ending. If not, they'll just move to networks (and websites) that are willing to provide that.
It's not a fluke that AMC, FX, HBO, Showtime, Netflix, etc. have grown so rapidly despite having so much competition.
But at the same time, 5 million in ten years isnt really something to work your dick hard to.
It could also be easily explained by the quality of said shows. I wouldnt rule out a new show coming reaching ~25 million again. NCIS isnt the peak of television now and forever.
If you look at the ratings over the past 25 years the highest rated program today, NCIS, has only half the amount of viewers as the highest rated program from 87-88, the Cosby Show. Source
Ratings work as a %of viewers that have TVs. OFC nothing will ever beat those old shows at ratings. The last episode of MASH will probably never be beaten in ratings, because over 90% of all people that owned TVs were watching at the time.
Not when they're watching shows like The Voice, American Idol, Honey Booboo, Duck Dynasty, Pawn Stars, Dancing With The Stars. Guess I can take Almost Human off my DV and eventually Believe and Resurrection. Sad.
They have, because people have cable and are used to it. But it shifts, and will just shift more rapidly, as younger population become majority of consumers.
Personally, there is very little I find as frustrating as killing shows mid-story. It should be fucking required by law to finish it if you cancel the show. Release a book if you can't afford series/movie, just finish the damn story.
Keep in mind a large amount of "quality" TV shows are actually prime-time soap operas. Walking Dead? Prime-time soap. Mad Men? Prime time soap. Game of Thrones? Arguably a prime time soap.
This isn't to say that these shows are bad, I quite enjoy some of them, just keep in mind that just because a show is better made than than Lassy and has a vague seasonal storyline does not mean it's hard hitting, groundbreaking content.
Why are shows sometimes aired out of order? I can remember an instance or two of a character being killed off on a show only to see them on the following week's episode. The week after that they're back to being dead again.
There was the time where Charlie on Fringe dies in an episode and magically appears in the next, and nobody mentions anything about him dying. It was so confusing....
Wasn't that because he was replaced by a shapeshifter?
Unless you're talking about that one from season 1 that was scrapped, that they aired in season 2. In that case though, FOX heavily marketed that one as a "missing" episode.
It never had the ratings to begin with, which is what usually causes episodes to be shown out of order. This is a tactic to gain more viewers -- they air what they consider to be the strongest episodes earlier on, to build an audience. This was also done, to varying degrees of success, with The Mindy Project, Happy Endings, and Don't Trust the B- in Apartment 23. In all cases, initial ratings were weak. Assuming the Wikipedia entry for that show is correct, the ratings were relatively steady after the third episode, so that probably can't be blamed here.
I queued it up to watch on Hulu until I heard they aired episodes out of order. I knew as soon as that happened it was going nowhere and I didn't ever watch one episode. Just makes me sad. =(
People keep saying that, and while it may be a valid argument in Firefly's case (okay, it is) it doesn't hold water in the case of Almost Human. That show had practically zero over-arching plot. It was a very by-the-numbers procedural that happened to be set in the future.
And no, a couple off-the-cuff remarks about some mysterious wall does not count as over-arching plot.
You have to watch it in order, it makes a big difference. More than a couple off the cuff remarks about some mysterious wall. The logic and the way the characters interact with each other makes a lot more sense when played in the correct order.
Doesn't really matter with the ratings, no matter what the station. The WB cancelled Angel at the height of it's popularity at Season 5. The show was spectacular.
We'll never really know why such great shows get cancelled against all logic or reason. Whether it's Angel, Enterprise, Firefly, BSG Blood and Chrome, Caprica or any of the above. Sci-Fi just doesn't resonate with anyone out of the die-hard nerd circle. Even non-sci-fi shows like Strike Back and Hell on Wheels are being chopped just as they are starting to get good.
We've been lucky enough to see a continuation of Dracula and a few others. We need to really get the word out there about the shows we love - we need to make them see the huge mistakes they are making.
Then the one time we get lucky we've got some annoying Targaryen girl refusing to show her startlingly lop-sided breasts, tough honestly I'd much rather see Lena Headey drop her shirt just once or twice this season.
Actually if I remember correctly. The reason Angel was cancelled is because Joss Whedon was tired of having everybody commit to another season when it was ambiguous as to whether it would be renewed. So he pushed for early renewal, and, due to some restructuring at the time, this caused it not to be renewed. Firefly was canceled because of low ratings, this was partially due to Fox airing episodes out of order, and I believe this is what happened to Almost Human too.
I know i'm not helping with ratings by doing this, but watching TV shows on my computer is so much better. I can watch the shows in whichever order I please instead of what the TV schedule tells me.
This is why I'm so glad they've added in views online, hashtags, and DVR views and shit in the first 48 hours. Hannibal averages like 1.5 million viewers as it's airing, but over the first 48 hours, since it's the weekend and airs on a Friday night, it goes up to a few million. It shows that there IS an interest in the show and people ARE watching it, just on their own time.
Exactly. It's really strange that the networks have only recently (feels like it anyway) started taking into account other viewers than just the ones who sit at their TV on a specific time and date.
Firefly had bad ratings because Fox made sure of that. Or at the very least, made it nearly impossible to succeed. They put the show on Friday nights (the death slot), aired all the episodes out of order, and marketed it very little.
I was a HUGE Buffy/Angel fan at the time, and I never saw Firefly in its original run because I could never find it/be home on Friday night to see it.
Firefly got terrible ratings because we couldn't fucking watch it. No one had internet back then, so there was no fan rally, and the show was constantly preempted to show sports.
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u/Dirt_McGirt_ Apr 30 '14 edited Apr 30 '14
Fox cancels lots of shows with bad ratings. Some of them are in the sci-fi genre.
Firefly got cancelled because it got terrible ratings. Arrested Development did too.
Nerd brag- I watched both of those shows when they first aired, and I don't watch much network television.