‘Terminator’ Cancellation: Much Ado About Nothing?
Well, I certainly hope so.
There’s been a lot of doom and gloom-filled chatter recently about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles following an article at SyFy Portal reporting some depressing rumors from one of those ever elusive sources. The unnamed “insider” reportedly claims that not only is Terminator close to cancellation, but it’s also supposedly bringing down the ratings of Prison Break, the show that follows it on Monday nights.
*Cough* *Cough* Excuse me a moment while I stop choking on laughter.
Yes, Terminator’s numbers have not been good at all this season; this week it barely edged past the anemic — by overall broadcast standards — ratings for The CW’s Gossip Girl. But, that’s largely because the show airs on a lousy night and at a horrible time that is now extremely competitive following the fall premieres of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, NBC’s Chuck, ESPN’s Monday Night Football, and CBS’ fantastic sitcom block.
Blaming Terminator for decreasing its lead-out Prison Break’s Nielsen numbers is just plain low, however. The alleged accusation is really the dumbest thing I’ve heard in ages, especially since we’re talking about a series that’s at least two seasons past its freshness expiration date. Let Prison Break take responsibility for its own decline, thank you.
All I have to say is if Fox cancels Terminator in the near future — gossipers are predicting the ax could come down as soon as this week — without giving it a fair shake on another night at another time, the network will merely be repeating the profoundly poor judgment it has demonstrated in the past with other genre shows, ranging from Angel, which, astoundingly, was actually on the rise when it was axed, to New Amsterdam just last season.
Terminator has been getting better and better with each episode this season — Monday’s Cameron thriller was superb — so I hope all of the current negativity is only a whole bunch of nothing. Of course, this is Fox we’re talking about, though, which doesn’t bode well for Terminator fans given the network’s notorious reputation for rushing to cancel series.
3 Comments
I am totally with you … I think the scheduling is bad, and it’s hurting the series a lot. However, what else is Fox going to put in that slot? They don’t exactly have programming geared to audience that won’t tune in to football games.
Michael, you are so correct that Fox lacks proper counterprogramming for Monday nights, which is why I hope execs don’t do the wrong thing and penalize a good show for an impossible situation it didn’t create.
In a perfect world, I’d swap “Til Death and Terminator. The sitcom has a longer, albeit mediocre, history and is on the outs with its longtime viewers anyway because of recent casting changes, while Bones is more compatible with the latter if only because of the female lead connection (which is always good enough here at Grrl TV!).
[...] of us Sarah Connor Chronicles fans have heard the recent grumbling about the implications of the show’s much lower ratings this season. Just last week, the word [...]