FX Adds an Eleventh Episode for Legion’s Second Season
FX announced this week that its X-Men tie-in series Legion will be getting an additional episode and that will push its season finale one week later to June 12th. Word is that the new episode will see series lead David Haller (who is the son of Charles Xavier) battling the future. I’m sure fans of the show are happy to get the additional installment, but it is rather odd for a cable series to add an episode at this point in the season and it has me wondering about the show’s future. Legion is down by over 50% in the ratings year-over-year (0.21 season-to-date average vs. last years’ 0.45 average) which makes me wonder if this episode might be designed to wrap up as many of the show’s storylines as possible and act as a series finale. I have not seen that suggested in any of the announcements of the new episode, but it would make some sense as the series would play better to binge-viewing if it had a finale. It may be that FX has not made a definite decision on the show’s future, but have this episode planned as a wrap-up of sorts in case they decide not to bring Legion back for a third year. I currently have that show On the Bubble because its fate seems uncertain based on its viewership declines and this uncharacteristic late addition of an episode. Fans should start making noise on the social networks to bring the show more attention, otherwise that eleventh Season 2 episode could very well be its last.
Ratings Results of Interest: Colony Returns Down, The Crossing and The Expanse Slip
On Wednesday, USA’s alien invasion series Colony returned for its third season but only posted a 0.16 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 579K total viewers. That rating was down by almost 40% from the show’s season average in its second year which is definitely not a good place to start. I will give it one week to see if it improves, but if not I will be moving this one to Bubble status. Over on Syfy on Wednesday, The Expanse slipped to a 0.16 rating with 590K total viewers which has that one right on the edge of acceptable numbers for its network. On The CW, The Originals held at a 0.4 rating with 898K total viewers and you have to wonder if the network isn’t rethinking that final season decision. Or perhaps they will carry over several of the series regulars to the Hope Mikaelson spin-off that is currently in the works.
On Monday, ABC’s The Crossing slipped to a series low 0.5 rating with 3.6 million total viewers. That show has slipped in the ratings pretty much every week since it debuted with a mediocre 0.9 score and I am moving it to Cancellation Likely status at this point. Over on FOX, Lucifer slipped to a 0.6 rating with 2.8 million total viewers, but fans continue to lobby hard for a fourth season of that show. On Tuesday, Freeform’s Shadowhunters improved slightly to a 0.17 rating with 419K total viewers which keeps it off Bubble status for another week. But that show is down by almost 40% from where it was last year.
On Thursday, FOX’s Gotham slipped to a 0.6 rating with 1.9 million total viewers, and a fifth season renewal remains in doubt for that one. Over on Freeform, Siren slipped to a 0.16 rating with 513K total viewers, but that may just be a blip for that one as it has been doing well for its network thus far this season.
We are just a little over a week away from the Upfronts when the networks present their schedules for the 2018-19 season to the advertisers. Be sure to follow this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for all the breaking news that will be leading up to that. Ratings Source: ShowBuzzDaily
