As NBC’s supernatural drama The InBetween winds down its first season, its status remains uncertain after a subpar ratings performance during the Summer months. That show actually started out with decent numbers for a typically low-viewership time of year, but it saw those slip across subsequent weeks and it is currently performing below replacement level unless the bar has dropped lower this year. The show is pretty much even ratings-wise with CBS Summer genre entry Blood & Treasure which has already received a second season renewal from its network. However, the latter series is performing higher in the total viewers metric which older-skewing CBS tends to pay more attention to. The InBetween has not received glowing reviews from critics thus far (it currently holds a 67% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it has scored better with viewers (with a 94% Audience Score on RT), so there are certainly people who would like to see this one return for a second year.
Working against the show is the fact that it was pushed to a Summer run which suggests that NBC execs may have lost faith in the series. It was originally scheduled for a mid-season start, but it never showed up as part of the regular season line-up and eventually was shifted to a late-May debut with minimal promotion. Then the series was preempted twice within a three-week period which did nothing to help its viewership. The debut posted a 0.6 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic–decent for a Summer scripted entry–but saw that drop by a tenth of a point for the next three weeks in a row ending at a 0.3. By all indications, it appeared that NBC had cast the show to a Summer burn-off run and would do little to support it. But after the initial fall-off in the ratings, the show’s numbers have stabilized and it has remained closer to a 0.4 the last few weeks. Those numbers are still pretty low, but not disastrous, and the broadcast networks do continue to want to have some scripted programming on their Summer schedules.
I currently have the show On the Bubble, largely because of the fact that it appeared NBC gave up on it before it aired. But as mentioned, the numbers have been passable the last few weeks, and it is not impossible that the network could be convinced to keep this one around for a second season. That would require a Call to Action from fans with a strong outpouring of support on the social networks. If fans were to make a push for The InBetween that would draw some attention to it, and if the numbers remain steady, perhaps NBC execs could be convinced to keep this one around. But that needs to happen soon and fans needs to make plenty of noise to sway the brass at the peacock network. Otherwise this show could fade away after its first season and become yet another casualty of the Peak TV crunch.
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