As expected, Unforgettable and one of our favorite new shows, Person of Interest, have both been picked up for full seasons leaving Friday night’s new drama, A Gifted Man, as the only new show on CBS who’s fate is, as of yet, still undecided.
Both shows have been consistently strong in the timeslots with Unforgettable winning its slot in total viewers with against ABC’s Body of Proof and NBC’s Parenthood. Person of Interest has been averaging 9.5 million viewers and a 2.8 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic and the most recent episode had 12 million eyeballs on it.
We’re thrilled about Person of Interest as it’s one of the best new shows of the season but we don’t really care about the schedule filler of a procedural, Unforgettable, however, once again, it is a very positive sign that the networks have committed to this many shows so early without hitting the panic button.
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I watch both shows, like them both, POI a bit more, hope though it gets a bit darker and some arc, I love arcs.;-)
We love serial arcs but unfortunately, they tend to be losers on major network television (they do great on cable). That being said, that’s why I’m kind of glad they haven’t gone full-blown serial on POI or Terra Nova because it would drive audiences away. I was, however, liking the ELias arc but they did the big reveal way too early-on (and I had it figured out 20 minutes into the episode) but I hope they revisit that.
Yeah you are right about that, as soon as it gets complicated, viewers turn away, I don’t get that. Sure I like an episode of Criminal Minds of something with no heavy arc but that’s just the fill up an evening. Same as Fringe, I really do not understand why the ratings have dropped from 10 million plus to 3 million. Especially second and third seasons were awesome. For me it’s the best show at this time.
It’s the short-attention span generation, my friend. 300+ channels of cable television, Internet, streaming movies, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Facebook… everyone expects immediate gratification and it’s rare in this current climate that a network TV show is successful if they serialize it, especially with Science Fiction. Recall that with the first two seasons of Fringe, there wasn’t a real serial arc to it. It was basically a bunch of standalone episodes with an omnipresent theme that was regularly touched upon, just like The X-Files. It wasn’t until season three that it had a weekly serial arc and a lot of viewers gave up because they couldn’t keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I love Fringe, but I recognize that the average 18-49 year-old viewer in the “general audience” is pretty stupid and unfortunately, they are the ones that pay the bills for the shows.
The last successful serialized sci-fi show was Lost and the only reason that did so well was that it was three seasons into it before audiences realized they were watching a sci-fi show. 🙂