Cancellation Watch Season Roundup: Scoring This Season’s Predictions for Shows Like The Orville, The Gifted, Z Nation, and More

The 2018-19 regular season is over, so now it’s time to take a look back and see how well I did at predicting the renewal or cancellation of this season’s sci fi and fantasy shows.  I have predictions for all shows across the broadcast networks, cable channels, and streaming services available at the Cancellation Watch Page.  But for the streamers that is usually just a guess because they don’t share their viewership numbers and for some of the cable shows it is mostly guesswork if they are imports and/or have streaming / international deals propping them up.  Below is the list of the shows that I used to measure how accurate my predictions were this season (carrying over Humans and Into the Badlands from last year due to the late announcements on them) because I had ratings numbers for these and had tracked historical renewal / cancellation trends for their networks.  This includes the broadcast network shows and most of the shows that aired on cable.  And all of these have received a final renewal of cancellation notice by this time.

If I had a show at Cancellation Likely status and it was cancelled, I got it right. If I had it at Renewal Likely or Renewal Possible status and it was renewed, I got it right. I counted both the Renewal statuses the same, but but if you want to hold me more accountable for the Renewal Likely designation, that’s fine because it will improve my score (in other words, I got those all right). If I put the show as On the Bubble, I’m basically saying it is a toss-up, and those count as a push. Overall, I was 93% accurate with my predictions, with a 100% accuracy rate on cancellation predictions and 91% accuracy rate on renewals.

My two big misses were Syfy’s Z Nation and IFC’s Stan Against Evil. I was sure the Syfy would bring its zombie-pocalypse show back for at least one more season, but perhaps that network is splitting with The Asylum now that it is not doing anymore Sharknado movies. I was also relatively confident that IFC would bring Stan Against Evil back for another round, but apparently that network is changing direction with its scripted programming.

If you pushed me to make a final call for the Bubble shows, that would have dropped my overall accuracy a bit to 91%.  For Counterpart (Starz), Humans (AMC), Into the Badlands (AMC), and Nightflyers (Syfy), I was leaning Cancellation Likely and that is where they ended up.  For Van Helsing (Syfy) I was leaning Cancellation Likely as well, but it got a surprise renewal (while Z Nation got the surprise cancellation).  For The Orville (FOX), I stuck with a Renewal Possible status until the last week when I got nervous and moved it On the Bubble. But I still considered it slightly more likely to get a renewal (apparently talks went late into the night on that one) and it did.

It becomes harder and harder to make these predictions each year as the ratings numbers continue to drop, making it more difficult to gauge what is still acceptable for the networks (especially for shows living on ratings scraps like American Gods, Van Helsing, and Star Wars Resistance). And before long–perhaps even in the next couple of years–it will become just too difficult to make accurate predictions on these shows. But for now, I am still giving it a go and my accuracy rate this season was up from the 85% score I had last year. So be sure to stick with CancelledSciFi.com to monitor the status of your favorite sci fi and fantasy shows and to keep up with news and updates on genre television.

More Season Roundup Coverage:

List of all the Cancellations and Renewals from the 2018-19 Season

Syfy Appears to Be Fading as a Network, Will It Become a Peak TV Casualty?

Final Scorecard for the Regular Season, Game of Thrones Sit Atop the Rankings

A Look at How This Year’s Sci Fi and Fantasy Shows Did on the Linear Networks and Streaming Channels

First Look at neXt, Batwoman, Evil, and More of the Upcoming Season’s New Shows (with Trailers)

First Look at the Fall 2019 Slate of Sci Fi and Fantasy Shows

Roundup of the Renewals, Cancellations, Pickups, and Schedule Announcements from the Upfronts

More from CancelledSciFi.com:

Keep up with the ratings developments and the status of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Weekly Roundup posts. Join the #CancelledSciFiArmy on Twitter to bolster our ranks and help us fight for the struggling and cancelled sci fi and fantasy shows.

Check out our Sci Fi TV Schedule for debut and season finale dates and follow our Weekly Listings for a rundown of the shows airing in the current week.

A look back at guilty pleasures and old favorites that may not have stood the test of time with Retro Sci Fi TV.