Sci Fi TV Week in Review: Johnny Jay’s irreverent, snarky, and caffeine-fueled look back at the past week in sci fi TV in five minutes or less.
It’s Friday morning and I’m on my third cup of joe while reviewing the sci fi TV news from the past week and there’s quite a lot to unpack. So grab your hot brew (or iced nitro or Earl Grey) and maybe a batch of cini-minis and join me for the ride.
Last week I mentioned that Netflix went into meltdown mode because it lost a handful of subscribers, and not surprisingly that tantrum continued into this week. The superhero series Raising Dion was cancelled after two seasons despite the fact that the show pulled in over one billion minutes of viewing for the week of its Season 2 premiere. Certainly the best strategy to stop viewer attrition is to cancel a show that lots and lots of people are watching. Expect more cancellations from that service as we could be on the verge of seeing the Peak TV bubble burst. (And sure enough, Space Force was cancelled late on Friday)
Supporting that assertion is the fact that TBS and TNT are taking their leave from the scripted programming game. Now that Warner Bros. and Discovery have merged to become the latest mega-monster-corp (and they may be buying you and me soon), they decided to celebrate by cancelling all scripted development at the two cable companies. Sci fi entry Snowpiercer was set to return to TNT for a fourth season, so that could be its last or it could shift to HBO Max (where prior seasons are streaming).
And yet two more cancellations came in late on Friday as The CW gave the ax to Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman. More on those at this link.
Meanwhile, Epix renewed a show that maybe people are watching, maybe they’re not. The sci fi/horror series From received a second season renewal from that network which will air at some point in 2023. Nielsen does not track the viewership for Epix, but that one did at least receive some good buzz from critics and the sci fi community in its first season.
The Walking Dexit has moved to the next level as not only are viewers bailing from the franchise, so are the actors. Melissa McBride has exited from the planned Carol and Daryl TWD spin-off (so now it will just be the Daryl show?). The filming for the planned series will be done in Europe (do the zombies there snarl with an accent?) and that did not work with McBride’s schedule. There is no word at this point if the show will be scrapped or if they will continue with it in a different direction.
Netflix may be cancelling shows, but HBO Max is making up the slack by piling on. That streamer has given a 10-episode order to the Harley Quinn spin-off Noonan’s which will follow the sort of superhero Kite-Man who buys a bar where super folks hang out. No, really. Hey, Harley Quinn has been fun and this has the same creative team, so it should be worth a look. Expect it to arrive late 2022 or early 2023 and HQ will be back with her third season at some point in Summer.
In ratings news, nobody watched the premiere of the new sci fi entry The Man Who Fell to Earth on Showtime. And I mean nobody! It managed only a 0.02 rating (two one-hundredths of a ratings point) and 125K total viewers based on the same-day numbers. The premium cable channels pay less attention to those same-day numbers because they don’t have sponsors buying commercial time, but that still counts as a slow start for any show. It appears that not many people were nostalgic for that property and maybe Showtime should have done a better job promoting it. (You can see more ratings news from the past week at this link.)
In the digital ratings, Russian Doll did not place in the Netflix Top 10 for the week of its second season premiere. That definitely does not bode well for a third season when the streamer is cancelling shows that had over a billion minutes of viewing in a week.
Next week brings two premieres to the schedule, both of which are highly anticipated. Paramount+ adds yet another prequel series to the Star Trek franchise with Strange New Worlds which follows Captain Christopher Pike, Mr. Spock, Number One, and the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the days before some guy named Kirk sat in the captain’s chair. Also next week, the uncancellable Mystery Science Theater will be back for a thirteenth season of snarky and hilarious riffing on bad movies. That will be available on the exclusive platform Gizmoplex. You can see all of the upcoming sci fi and fantasy TV premieres at this link.
Did I miss anything? Probably because I was reading episodes recaps of Moon Knight trying to figure out just what the heck is going on in that show, so let me know in the comments below.
Be sure to keep up with the news during the week with This Week in Sci Fi TV and r/SciFiTV.
Trailers
Night Sky (Amazon): Spanning space and time, Night Sky follows Irene and Franklin York, a couple who, years ago, discovered a chamber buried in their backyard which inexplicably leads to a strange, deserted planet. They’ve carefully guarded their secret ever since, but when an enigmatic young man enters their lives, the Yorks’ quiet existence is quickly upended…and the mystifying chamber they thought they knew so well turns out to be much more than they could ever have imagined. Premieres May 20th.
SciFiTVSite.com: Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and keep up with what is airing/streaming each week with our Weekly Listings.
CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the status updates of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Sci Fi TV Update posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
