It was good news for the “Stargate” franchise and bad news for Joss Whedon and Fox Friday evening.
According to the initial overnight ratings, “Stargate: Universe” drew more viewers for its debut episode than “Dollhouse” did on Fox.
Syfy’s two-hour premiere of “Stargate: Universe” brought in 2.4 million viewers Friday night. That topped the record set by the debut of “Stargate: Atlantis.”
And the bad news just keeps coming for “Dollhouse.” The show sank 20% off last week’s low numbers for the worst viewership of a new episode yet for the second year series. The show brought in 2.1 million viewers to Fox according to initial numbers.
SG:U had TOO many commercials and they were jarringly timed! They should have taken a hint from premier of Fringe and limited the interruptions.
We had a conflict on the PVR. Medium, Dollhouse and SG:U. After seeing the first two eps of Dollhouse, we opted to cancel the recording of Dollhouse and watch Medium. Then we watched SG:U and skipped all the commercials. My wife and I loved it.
I liked the last several episodes of dollhouse and was excited for this season, however it returned to it’s early season suckiness from last season. I want to like it… Still there isn’t much else on Friday night, I don’t have cable so SGU is automatically Hulu only for me anyway. SGU looks great though.
I’m not surprised by the tremendous opening of this show. First SyFy actually did all the prelims correctly — loads of advertising in various venues to capture as wide an audience as possible, tremedous cast line-up designed to appeal to all age groups, sexes and genre-addicts and the smarts to push the SG logo with each pitch with a reminder that this won’t be your daddy’s Stargate.
Great writing, production and acting in the opening multi-part pilot. And, from the credits, it looks like that kind of quality will continue, at least for the first 13 episodes.
Very smart indeed. I will have to give SyFy kudos for doing this one right. Maybe the name change will turn out to be a good thing. Time will tell.
I found it a very strong pilot. I hope it keeps its ‘differentness’ I hope they don’t end up visiting endless ‘pine tree planets’ with Renaissance faire humans. More differentness and alienness is what I hope for but the pilot came off very solid. The pilot themes reminded me off The Last Starfighter meets Lost In Space (with a doctor Smith type character included).
Uh, guys, I think you need to revisit your figures. Those are pretty pedestrian numbers, decent but not great. It says a lot that the only numbers that they tout as beating are a tanking network show (sorry Dollhouse, I love you but not many other people do) and previous years of Stargate (SG-1 has been off the air for years and SGA ended last year)..
BTW the debut record set by SGA was 3.2HH and approx. 4.2 million viewers, SGU didn’t even come close. Neither did it beat Sanctuary’s premiere at the same time last year 2.2HH and 2.7 million viewers.
Maybe the Americans need to get over the need to “beat” something else in order to be seen as good.
The claims of SGU pulling in more viewers than SGA came directly from SyFy’s press release.
And I’ve noticed that SGU is all over SyFy this week–they’re really showing the pilot a lot to get in new fans and to help them figure out this isn’t the same Stargate that once once. I like that since I felt as if the later Stargate got in its run, the harder it was for new fans to pick it up and join the fun.
If you didn’t see it or had other recordings…for any Dollhouse…SG:U conflicts on the DVR’s…I highly suggest relying on Hulu to keep you up to date on one of the conflicting time slots.
Saw the Pilot. LOVED IT. I really didn’t get all that into SG1. I love this version already. I think most to all of the actors can keep me interested. Lou Diamond!
If you like sci fi but maybe didn’t like SG1…this is probably gonna fit right into your comfort zone. Great start! Can’t wait to see more. Good job SyFy channel! And best of all…the possibility of SyFy giving up on this series after one year looks to be low.
Michael, I suggest you go reread the Syfy release because you have misinterpretted it. The release said it was the best SG premiere in 4 years. The record established by SGA was more than 4 years ago.