This season alone, two of NBC’s most anticipated new Thursday night TV series — Prime Suspect and The Firm — have flopped. Is Awake different? Will it be cancelled or survive to see a second season?
Awake revolves around police detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) following a horrific car accident with his wife (Laura Allen) and son (Dylan Minnette). Britten discovers that he’s living two parallel realities. In one, his wife died in the accident. In the other, his son did. As he tries to discover what’s going on, he finds that details from both realities seem to bleed into the other. The cast also includes B.D. Wong, Cherry Jones, Michaela McManus, Steve Harris, and Wilmer Valderrama.
The show debuted on March 1st with lots of positive reviews, a mediocre 2.0 rating in the all-important 18-49 demographic, and 6.24 million total viewers. It was first in its timeslot, opposite repeats on ABC and CBS. While the premiere of Awake didn’t generate great numbers, it did better than Prime Suspect and The Firm. It was also the best performance that NBC’s had in that timeslot since last May.
Many contended that the premiere’s ratings were undercut because NBC released the pilot online well in advance — a strategy that seemed to help generate some buzz. If that gamble paid off, theoretically the numbers for the second episode would be better than the first. They weren’t.
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The ratings for episode two fell 20%, to a 1.6 demo rating and 4.33 million. It was easily beaten by an original edition of The Mentalist on CBS but topped a rerun of the GCB pilot on ABC. Week three of Awake held steady. If the show could maintain those numbers for the rest of the season, it would be safe. Unfortunately, it couldn’t.
Episode four’s numbers dropped a whopping 25%. Weeks five and six then dropped another 17% and 10% respectively. After just a half dozen episodes, Awake is basically matching the Thursday night ratings of NBC’s other cancelled dramas.
Based on the ratings, Awake is sure to be cancelled by May. They’re just too low for the peacock network to be able to justify a second season on the network.
Given the state of NBC’s current schedule, it seems likely that the network will let the remaining seven episodes air on Thursday nights. If the ratings continue to drop, they may pull it or ship it off to the Saturday night graveyard with The Firm.
Most importantly, it looks unlikely that viewers will have their questions answered by the last episode of Awake.
But, what do you think? Are you still watching Awake? Have you lost interest? Do you think it should be cancelled or renewed for a second season?
Image courtesy NBC.
Shame…. but it was doomed from the start with shows like these you can’t help but think, wrong network, wrong time slot, wrong release date.
Awake is much better than Prime Suspect or The Firm. I gave up on them after one episode each. I hope it is renewed.
If it does get cancelled, what can fans do to get the show’s creators to tell us what they had in mind as the explanation for the dual realities? (Personally, I’m not expecting that the answer will satisfy me—it’s hard to imagine an explanation that would account for scenes in both realities that don’t have Det. Britten in them—but at least it would be SOME answer!)
I’m glad I went into the show with low expectations for its success. I’ve still not gotten over being burned by NBC’s cancellation of “Journeyman,” which was THE. BEST. SHOW. EVER.
I just watched one show today and I AM HOOKED!! But then I thought, don’t get too attached because it will be cancelled. The networks cancel the good dramas and keep the cutesey, sophmoric shows or the reality shows. I thought Prime Suspect was good and they kept taking it off and on the air and changing nights and sure enough~~off the air for low ratings. Well no wonder. In addition, they don’t give the shows long enough to grow an audience.
I hope this show gets renewed…its awesome.
I generally don’t allow myself to become addicted to TV shows. There simply isn’t enough out there worth watching. I hadn’t planned to watch the pilot but was intrigued by the story line, so I did watch it and became hooked. I’ve always loved good scifi and good detective stories. Loved Isaacs in Case Histories on PBS. I really like this show and will be angry if it’s cancelled — especially considering some of the garbage that seems to thrive out there on network TV and all the boring reality shows.
This show is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise repetitive tv drama and reality show line up that has been duplicated and syndicated to death.
It’s nice to finally have a show I look forward to every week and I would be very disappointed if it wasn’t renewed. The writing and storyline are fantastic and definitely keep me coming back every week.
Hmmm not bothered if it gets cancelled its just another cop show with a twist!
Definitely a second season!I love the show is very interesting!Jason Isaacs and Laura Allen are just stunning in their roles!**** YOU NBC!Love from Greece.
It should definitely be renewed! It’s so intriguing!
I love this show!!! What can I do to keep it alive???
Intriguing and engaging show. I hope it gets renewed!
NBC does own SyFy so there is always the outside chance it could go there if they cancel it, but what a shame….so it’s a “niche” audience? So the heck what?!?!?! Walking Dead pulls in about 3 million/week and is considered a runaway hit – it’s time for the nets to think more like basic cable and realize that those fans who so passionately support Fringe, and Supernatural and Awake may not be legion (in the Reality crapola sense of the word), but we care more deeply than any other fans, and we never miss an episode.
Walking dead pulls in way more than 3million. More like 5-9million.
Great show. I haven’t seen a show this clever and stimulating in a long time. Much like the UK show Life On Mars, it poses the question of reality to the main character, and the audience has no more clues than the character, most eps, over what is real and what isn’t. I’d love to see this show continue for a couple or three years, as he explores both worlds and the connections between them.
This is another show that requires people to think and most of America wants mindless drool to watch. So shows that require some intellect get cancelled, unfortunately.
I’d like to see this show continue and think it is getting better. But I have resigned myself to the fact that very few shows I watch ever make it to season 2. At least I can fall back to PBS for some intellectual shows (not to say they put some junk on as well, just not as much.)