Cancellation Watch: The 100 is on a Dangerous Trajectory, Agents of SHIELD is Hanging On

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:

On the Hot Seat: Three weeks ago, The CW’s The 100 premiered with decent numbers (for the fifth place network) as it pulled a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demo with its debut episode.  It has been all downhill since then, though, with this last Wednesday’s airing slipping to a 0.6 score with 1.9 million total viewers.  Those numbers don’t doom it just yet, but if it drops any further its chances will fade very rapidly.  Even at the 0.6 level, it’s on shaky ground.  Its network has reasserted itself on the Prime Time schedule this season (more so during the first half) largely on the strength of veteran shows Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and Arrow as well as newcomer The Originals (and to a lesser extent non-genre entry Reign).  And The CW has some strong pilots in the works with only ten hours a week that they are currently programming (with six hours locked up).  I’m guessing they will drop all of their ratings laggers at the end of this season and go with new entries to continue building their momentum.  And unless The 100‘s numbers start moving in the other direction, it will count as a ratings lagger as well.  If it doesn’t drop any further, they might hold onto it as a mid-season replacement (or how about using it or another show to fill in dead time instead of all those repeats?).  But The 100 needs to start building back up its audience if it wants to keep its place on the schedule going into next year.  The numbers from next week’s episode will be crucial.  If it continues to drop, its days could be numbered.

Also continuing to struggle is NBC’s Revolution.  That show actually improved its numbers slightly on Wednesday to a 1.3 score with 4.4 million total viewers, but that is anything but a ratings surge.  Its not dead in the water yet, though, considering how poorly all of NBC’s scripted shows have performed this season.  Revolution has a rabid fanbase that is active on the social networks and I have already made the case that the network should reach out to them.  Whether that happens remains to be seen, and based solely its the numbers thus far this season, the show’s prospects remain grim.

On Tuesday, Agents of SHIELD returned from a two week absence to at least decent numbers, pulling a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demo (based on the final numbers and better than the 1.8 indicated by the prelims) with 5.7 million total viewers.  I’m still keeping that one on the bubble, but I would lean towards likely to be renewed if pressed on it.  It still has a half-dozen episodes to go, so let’s see how its numbers track as it closes the season.

Other Ratings News:  On Tuesday, Person of Interest pulled a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 demo with 11.5 million total viewers as that one winds down this year and preps for its fourth season return.  The CW is back into their late season patchwork schedule mode as The Originals was a repeat and Supernatural was preempted for an encore run of The 100.  On Wednesday, Arrow slipped to a 0.8 rating with 2.3 million total viewers as people who watch that network can’t figure out when a new episode is running these days.  Then on Thursday, Vampire Diaries offered up another repeat.  Here’s an idea CW: how about some spin-off mini-series from your best rated shows to fill in your schedule gaps?  Do six episodes with the Birds of Prey or Suicide Squad from Arrow or maybe take Charlie, Garth, and/or some other recurring Supernatural characters or any of the vast number of Vampire Diaries/Originals characters.  Fans of the shows would love to see more of these characters and would likely tune in for these in favor of the relentless reruns you air this time of year.  Then these could just get added to the syndication runs of the shows thus padding out their episode counts.  Just a thought, but it could be worth a try.

Finally, the series/season finale for Once Upon A Time in Wonderland pulled a 0.9 rating with 3.2 million total viewers on Thursday.  That series received its walking papers last week, though its cancellation has been a foregone conclusion for most of the season.  There are several other shows on the verge of a date with the network executioner as well, and Fridays are typically when those announcements are made.  Keep an eye on this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for any breaking news.  And you can see the current status for all this season’s genre shows at this link,  and for more information on the ratings numbers and how I determine the Cancellation Alert status of a show, see the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

Here are the season to date (StD) numbers and standings through April 3rd 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.