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.
Three sci fi TV shows met their demise this week, two of which were pretty much expected. The first announcement came mid-week as Apple TV+ indicated that the upcoming third season of its post-apocalyptic series See will be its last. A three-to-four-year run for a streaming original has become the standard these days, and they are likely paying Jason Momoa that big bucks to star in that show, so this news does not come as a huge surprise and at least the show has the opportunity to wrap up its storylines.
The CW’s Tom Swift–which is pretty much a name-only adaptation of the YA books–was the next show to get cut down, and that announcement came as no surprise. The network has been purging its schedule in preparation for the sale to the Nextar Media Group, and Tom Swift (which is a spin-off from The CW’s Nancy Drew series) seemed like a longshot at best when it was announced for a late-season premiere. The ratings for the show started out mediocre and then slipped and the network pulled the plug pretty quickly. Tom Swift may be a brilliant inventor in the show, but he couldn’t come up with anything to fend off the Nielsens.
The third show to fall was HBO’s The Time Traveler’s Wife which is an adaptation of the Audrey Niffenegger novel by Doctor Who veteran Steven Moffat. That show received little in the way of promotion and did not draw much of an audience according to the same-day Nielsen numbers. The six-part series did complete the story from the book, but time ran out before it could continue beyond that point.
In the cancelled-before-it-began category, Peacock has decided not to move forward with its television adaptation of the baseball fantasy Field of Dreams. The Good Place‘s Michael Schur was working on the project and it had been given a straight-to-series order. But this is the entertainment industry, and what might have seemed like a home run at one point is now considered a foul ball. It is also unclear if this was intended as a mini-series or if it would continue beyond the original story. Universal TV still has hopes for the property and is shopping it around to other venues.
In ratings news, the fourth season of Westworld had a pretty slow start according to the Nielsens, pulling in only a 0.06 rating based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic. We will have to see if it makes up slack in digital viewing (Nielsen is now tracking HBO Max), but as a leading indicator, those numbers are pretty low for such an expensive and high-profile show. More on the streaming and linear ratings for sci fi TV shows at CancelledSciFi.com.
In schedule announcements, NBC has set its Fall 2022 premiere dates with the Quantum Leap revival to have its bow on September 19th, and La Brea returning for its second season on September 27th. Also, HBO Max gave a firm date for the third season premiere of Harley Quinn as that one will arrive on July 28th. Next week, there is only one sci fi TV premiere currently set as the sci fi series Moonhaven arrives on AMC+ on July 7th. You can see all the premieres for July and beyond at this link plus you can see the Weekly Listings here.
In trailers this week, we got a look at the upcoming third season of See plus the second season of American Horror Stories (that’s the spin-off, not the original) as well as a quick teaser for La Brea Season 2. You can see those at this link.
Did I miss anything? Probably because I picked up the worst kind of souvenir while traveling (COVID) and my brain is scrambled right now, 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.
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 Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
