Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By John J. Joex

For one week at least, Fringe took the Number 1 position in its 9 PM EST Thursday timeslot as it scored a 3.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic and almost 9 million viewers. Of course it only had to contend with repeats of CSI and Grey’s Anatomy, but at least this demonstrates that the show still has a following and that it might pull better numbers in a less competitive timeslot. FOX’s Human Target also did well in a special Tuesday night airing (to avoid preemption from Obama’s Wednesday State of the Union Address). That show pulled a 3.2 rating, just lightly down from the prior week, and 9.6 million viewers.

Heroes continues its struggles on Monday nights, even though it did improve its numbers by one tick from the prior week. Still a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 demo hardly presents a strong case for a fifth season renewal. Chuck remained steady with a 2.5 rating and should track in that range throughout the rest of the season.

On Friday night, Dollhouse went out with a bang, quality-wise at least. The series finale gave us one of the best episodes of that show’s short run, unfortunately nobody tuned in as it only pulled a 0.8 rating and fifth place in its timeslot (one hour earlier at 8 PM EST this week). Perennial fifth place network CW even topped Dollhouse with Smallville which pulled a 1.1 rating.

And there was a Lost sighting during the week, but it was only a repeat episode to gear fans up for the sixth season premiere which comes this Tuesday.

Here is the full breakdown of the numbers for all of the Science Fiction and Fantasy shows that aired on the broadcast networks this past week:

Source: TV by the Numbers

Previous Results: Human Target Hits the Mark; Heroes Fading Fast

For more on the Cancellation Alert for each show, see our Cancellation Watch column