John Connor’s battle to save the future may be over. The second season finale of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicle” scored a 1.3 preliminary rating, drawing in just over 3 million viewers according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The finale’s numbers were consistent with the last several weeks according to reports. The series did experience a bit of a jump in the ratings a few weeks ago, but those spikes fell off in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, at 9 p.m. “Dollhouse” lost a tenth of a point from last week, scoring a 1.4 rating. The equals out to about 3.6 million viewers. The rating was the lowest for the series to date.
Terminator probably lost most of the Atlanta market as the local stations interrupted the broadcast for 30 minutes of severe storms coverage. I live right in the center of the worst of the storm’s impact and it was pretty minor. A big thanks for bit-torrent so I could see the entire episode the next morning.
They need to move this show to cable. 3 million viewers on any cable station, including the big boys like HBO or Showtime are great numbers to have. When are the networks going to learn that 3 to 5 million viewers is still a boatload of viewers and sill numbers ad companies can work with. If it weren’t so then there wouldn’t be new cable channels popping up everyday with commercials running on them.
I know it was mentioned on this past week’s Slice that the general feeling was that the show had run its course with the advent of this summer’s TERMINATOR: SALVATION … but I’ll put this bug in the air and see if anyone catches it … supposed SALVATION is a huge hit for Fox … might the suits resurrect the program in order to tap into that potential? Expect a May cancellation of the show, but, if the movie turns in blockbuster numbers, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the TV division gets asked to go back to the drawing board for an abbreviated third season — maybe a mid-season replacement or limited series run like JERICHO got from CBS — but it’s a long shot with these numbers.
3 million is really not that great a number, Sam, especially when you’re dealing with a franchise property the likes of TERMINATOR. Fox probably had big hopes for the program, but TPTB behind the show never really got it in gear, as far as I’m concerned. I think they had a handful (at best) of quality episodes, and a whole lotta stink otherwise. As I’ve said in the forums (I think we’ve had some great discussion over there on this subject), you just can’t wait so late into a season to give viewers a significant reason to tune in. You have to hit ’em right outta the gates with something — and I’m not talking about a huge character death or anything of the sort — but you’ve got to offer them something, some intrinsic motivation to want to see more. CONNOR never really did that for me. My wife and I found ourselves watching it almost out of necessity toward the end of this season, hoping and praying that it was all going to go somewhere, and these last two episodes are Exhibits A and B of “how to write some above average franchise properties” finally … yeah, I say that even with the last 10 minutes of the finale feeling oh so very tacked on haphazardly. There was enough there for me to put my own spin into what it all meant, and I can live with that.
Like I said, keep your fingers crossed that the film blows away all expectations and maybe we can get some more, but I’m not holding my breath at this point.
I love this show! I don’t know why they would make a finale with so many twists and not bring it back. I just want to know though, did Sarah actually go into the future? I know she didn’t when John did, but right at the very end there were sparks and then she says, “I love you too, John.” If she went into the future with him, that would make it even better.
This is the best sci-fi TV series EVER…and I’ve been watching for more than four decades now.
TV executives need to stop crunching short-term numbers and start taking a more visionary attitude towards what they do; they need to understand that what the show says is more important, ultimately, than their bottom line…even if it says it to “only” 3 million people.
Did they learn nothing from the cancellation of the original Star Trek series and all the box-office and spin-off series revenue that it ultimately netted them? Moral? Being visionary and giving a show time to devellop results in long-term success.