Cancellation Watch: Once Upon A Time in Wonderland Gets Cancelled, Helix and From Dusk Till Dawn Get Renewed

Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

Ratings Results for the Tuesday through Thursday sci fi / fantasy shows:

Cancellation Announcement: It comes as no surprise, but it appears that Once Upon A Time in Wonderland is officially coming to an end.  ABC billed next week’s episode as the “series finale” confirming what I have been predicting most of the season.  This one was originally planned as limited run series that would wrap up its storylines at the end of its first year, but the networks always have a continuation plan in case the ratings are good.  However, the cancellation announcement makes it clear that ABC will not chose to exercise that option.  Still, Wonderland will like get tacked on to its parent series’ eventual syndication run and we could see some character crossovers on future seasons of Once Upon A Time as well.

Renewal Notices:  Syfy announced a second season renewal today for freshman series Helix.  That pickup has not been a sure thing as the show has delivered mediocre ratings thus far, but its numbers have been no worse than what Haven averaged in the Fall and that one has already been renewed.  Plus, Helix fits into the network’s planned move back to more heavily science fiction oriented scripted programming, so that probably helped as well.  However, it will likely need to hold onto to its ratings, if not improve them, in its second season if it wants to continue beyond that.  And you may not have even known that From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series is airing because it is on new network El Rey, but it received a second season renewal as well.  The series has not made a dent in the ratings since its debut on March 11th, but it has received some positive buzz from critics and fans and that apparently is enough for a network that is more concerned about establishing its brand than waving Nielsen numbers around.  This will give the show time to establish itself and maybe start building up a measurable audience.

On the Hot Seat: I have had Revolution at an Elevated Cancellation Alert status almost since the season began, but there has been a glimmer of hope for the show based on the overall struggles NBC has faced with its scripted programming this year.  But some recent moves by the network suggest that this show is on the verge of getting its walking papers.  It was preempted this week for Prince Harry’s South Pole Heroes (?!?!), and an upcoming new episode of Revolution is getting booted for a repeat of Law and Order: SVU.  These are not scheduling moves you would see with a show that a network is trying to keep viable, and it looks like they may be on the verge of giving up on Revolution.  I have written an open letter to NBC urging them to work with the show’s devoted fanbase, but then that’s not the way networks typically role.  The final word on the series may not come until right before NBC presents next season’s schedule (at the Upfronts on May 12th), but I can’t say that I am optimistic at this point.

As for The CW’s new entry The 100, I wouldn’t say it is on the hot seat just yet, but I would call it warm.  That show debuted well by CW standards last week with a 0.9 rating, but this week it slipped to a 0.7 score in the 18-49 demo with 2.3 million total viewers.  That’s not a bad drop, but it’s almost the same track that The Tomorrow People followed in the same timeslot last Fall and it looks a bit precarious at this point.  If The 100 can hold at 0.7 or even improve its numbers, I say it gets renewed.  If it drops much lower, though, the network will think long and hard about bringing it back seeing as they have some strong pilots in the works.

Other Ratings News:  On Tuesday, The Originals was preempted for an encore run of The 100‘s pilot episode while Supernatural improved its numbers slightly from the prior week with a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 2.3 million total viewers.  Person of Interest also enjoyed a bump as it rose to a 2.0 rating with 12.2 million total viewers. On Wednesday, Arrow improved to a 0.9 rating with 2.6 million total viewers with an episode that introduced the Birds of Prey (another potential spin-off series).  On Thursday, Vampire Diaries slipped to a series low of a 0.7 rating with 1.7 million total viewers and I don’t imagine it can blame NCAA Basketball for the drop seeing as that is a very different audience.  Expect this one to rebound next week.  Once Upon A Time in Wonderland actually improved its numbers with its penultimate episode pulling a 0.9 rating with 3.3 million total viewers.  Those numbers won’t change ABC’s mind on the cancellation, though.

Here are the season to date (StD) numbers and standings through March 27th for all the shows that have bowed so far (sorted by most likely to get cancelled):

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and The Futon Critic

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2014 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

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