Though the television networks don’t seem to notice, remakes of old series rarely meet with much success. While shows like Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and Melrose Place bring name recognition, they rarely live up to expectations. Still, ABC moved ahead with their plans to revive V. Though it was initially successful, will it ultimately meet the same fate?
Like the original, the new V revolves around the arrival of aliens to the planet Earth. While the visitors profess that they’ve come in peace, their ulterior motives slowly become clear. The cast includes Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Logan Huffman, Lourdes Benedicto, Laura Vandervoort, and Scott Wolf.
The new V started out strong with a 5.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 14.3 million total viewers. That was the highest rated debut of the 2009-10 season.
Unfortunately, a large percentage of those viewers didn’t return for the second week. Episode two brought in a 3.8 rating and 10.7 million.
Week three dropped yet again, to a 3.1 in the demo and 9.26 million viewers. Last week, the numbers evened off and episode four attracted a third place 3.1 rating for 18-49 viewers and a total viewership of 9.2 million. While those numbers are pretty good on their own, they do represent a 40% drop in the demo when compared to the premiere.
 Loading ... |
If the ratings held steady, the series would likely be headed for a second season. Unfortunately, in part due to backstage problems, ABC has made the risky decision to split up the season into two parts. The first group of V episodes has finished airing and now, the series isn’t expected to return until after the Winter Olympics in March 2010.
If recent viewership trends have taught us anything, they’ve shown that long breaks can be disastrous for a serial drama’s ratings. People naturally become interested in other shows and any momentum is lost. What’s more, because storylines are ongoing and complicated, few new people feel inclined to start watching midseason.
Shows like Lost and Heroes saw significant drops in viewership when they took long midseason breaks. They both had very strong ratings and a lot of buzz going into their respective hiatuses. Fortunately, enough viewers returned to keep them on the air.
The new V doesn’t have nearly as much viewer buzz and can’t afford to lose many more viewers. If a high percentage of people don’t return to watch the second half of the season, V won’t survive and will be cancelled.
What do you think? Are you anxiously awaiting the show’s return? Will the hiatus kill the new V and cause its cancellation?
Image courtesy ABC.
More about:
V (2009),
V: The Series
{ 100 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
i wuz just getting you humans ready
I was quite excited when I heard that a re-make of V was coming… until I saw it.
Just like most re-makes, they killed it.
Everything is picture perfect and pretty and V wasn’t about them being perfect. Also seemed to have forgotten a few things like the voice distortions (which was also dropped in the original series but began with it) and sensitivity to light.
The original V kept you on the edge of your seat while this new remake is more or less Bold and the Beautiful Aliens with action scenes thrown in.
The original V began with an bang, kept you in suspense as they counted down to the first communication with Earth, whilst you are sitting there wondering if they are going to blow us up whilst the remake comes in and turns on a television under their ship and says hi. Lame…
Old V explains that the names are too complicated for humans to pronounce so we have chosen simple Earth names where as the new one just completely skips that.
All the small details which made V what it was seemed to be ignored or slightly touched on in the new ‘rushed’ V. And calling them Vees… wtf… seriously? And the V logo wasn’t about spreading the word of them being here in peace it was the sign of the rebels for Victory.
Sorry, you guys tried to jam too much in one first episode and rush too much too quickly, ignoring vital character development, story development and overall suspense building. It’s a flop compared to the original, even though I do admit the new effects are of course fantastic, but at the price of the story. It was more thrilling to see a ship chasing someone through the streets (old) than a stupid blue ball of light with spikes (new).
If your target audience is just the young one, well you probably will win them over with the effects and more than likely the fact that they may not know the story of the original, which began as a Mini Series, spawned a Second Mini Series, and then took off to be a successful TV Series. You guys really needed (though too late now) to bring out an introductory 2hr or 3hr beginning movie/mini series before you began because jamming it all in to one episode was awful.
And the inside of the ship, though spectacular looking, was not supposed to be so. It was intended and meant to be very bland… but you should know this, you should have seen the original.
Good luck, I’ll stick to the original. In fact, the thought of this coming out reminded me about V, so I went and bought the original mini series, then the second mini series (The Final Battle) and the original TV series to relive the whole experience. After watching your new premiere, our family put on the original mini series and we all agree the original mini series kept us more on the edge of our seat than anything in your hour long episode did. We won’t be following the new series, don’t much care for the whole picture perfect Melrose Place style look. We’re all quite happy to re-watch the old series, even our kids are hooked the old series with us now.
Of course not everyone is going to agree, but they don’t have to. This is just one viewers response to the new V series. One viewer you guys could have had, had you STUCK with the actual story line and the suspense the original had. Thank you for reading. (I know this post is probably a bit late, but over here in Australia, the new V just premiered).
I like the new V series. sometimes sticking to old ways is being a little close minded. The new series has some old ways yet adds a different light to the idea. i really think it has a chance.
← Previous Comments