Tonight's Eureka Episode [08-20-2010] - [Episode #0407, "Stoned."]...

[Zim Hosein]

Tensions between Carter and Grant over Allison peak, Henry woos his own wife and Zoe deals with a secret love as something begins turning townsfolk into stone.

Episode #0407, "Stoned."

 

[ViRGE]

So some good news, some bad news, and some meh news today:

Good: Eureka has been renewed for a 5th season. SciFi has not specified how many episodes, but there will be a 5th season.

Bad: The 4th season of Eureka was originally an order for 22 episodes. For whatever reason this was changed to 20 episodes. So it's still more than what they managed to film in the past 2 years combined, but it's now 2 shorter.

Meh: SciFi is probably not going to run the entire 4th season at once, which is problematic. For the last year now they've shown that they really only want to air 1 original series on Friday night at the 9pm time slot, with 8pm being a repeat and 10pm being an imported show. Once Eureka finishes the first 10 episode block, it would need to go on hiatus for SGU.

Furthermore there are only roughly 40 "premiere" weeks per year in their schedule; 20 of those would be for SGU, 10 of those are Eureka, and then the last 10 would be for the back-half of Caprica. In short, even though they ordered a 5th season, SyFy may screw over Eureka here and withhold the back-half of season 4 until the summer of 2011...

 

[Newbian]

Getting love advice from Fargo = win.

 

[ViRGE]

So I have some interesting numbers:

Ratings for Eureka S04E06 - Momstrosity

- 2.520 million viewers
- 1.6/3 HH
- 0.8/3 A18-49

For the sake of comparison, here's SGU S01E12, the highest rated episode of the back-half of the season:

- 1.600 million viewers
- 1.0/2 HH
- 0.6/2 A18-49

In the same time slot, in the middle of the summer, Eureka is crushing SGU at every possible metric. SyFy wanted to pick up a larger chunk of the younger audiences with SGU (which is why it's an OMG Drama! show), and while it has a higher percentage of its viewers in the 18-49 range, in terms of the total number of viewers an "old" show like Eureka is still pulling in more of those viewers even if the percentage is lower.

In short, the SGU gambit seems to have failed. SciFi went with a narrowly focused show that not only turned off a lot of older viewers, but in the process failed to capture more of the all-important younger viewers they wanted.

So SGU is getting a hail mary. This was apparently announced some time ago (and no one told me ) but it's being moved to Tuesdays, presumably to take Warehouse 13's slot once their season is over. Apparently all of those darn kids aren't home on Friday nights but are on Tuesday nights (or so SciFi thinks). Here's some W13 ratings:

Warehouse 13 S02E07

- 2.341 million viewers
- 1.4/2 HH
- 0.7/2 A18-49

Warehouse 13 S02E06

- 2.793 million viewers
- 1.6/3 HH
- 0.9/3 A18-49

In short it seems to be doing a bit better than Eureka in regards to both total numbers and 18-19. The question of course is whether moving SGU to the same Tuesday time slot will work, or if it will just result in a gap between W13 and SGU similar to Eureka and SGU. I'm betting on the latter.

TL;DR: Good sci-fi shows with a mix of action, drama, and lightheartedness get good ratings. Crappy emo teenage soap operas masquerading as sci-fi shows get poor ratings.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Once Eureka finishes the first 10 episode block, it would need to go on hiatus for SGU.

SG-U premiers on Sept. 28th, which is a Tuesday, looks like they are shuffling the schedule for better ratings?

 

[ViRGE]

SG-U premiers on Sept. 28th, which is a Tuesday, looks like they are shuffling the schedule for better ratings?

Yeah, if you look at my post from the 23rd I realized SGU got moved to Tuesday. In fact it's worse than that. I heard SciFi picked up more wresting, but until I Googled it just now I never realized what they picked up and what it was going to do to their schedule.

They picked up Friday Night Smackdown, which means the Friday block is as dead as a doornail and everyone's getting the Hail Mary.

So now we have the same problem, except it's a Tuesday problem instead of a Friday problem. Presumably it means someone gets an 8pm or a 10pm slot, but the way SciFi schedules things, that's basically the bitch slot so something is getting demoted (boy I hope it's Caprica!).

Fall: SGU & Sanctuary
Winter: Caprica & ?
Spring: SGU & ?

 

[Synomenon]

Finally watched this ep. last night. Interesting pairing Zoe and Zane and poor Lupo.