Californication follows novelist Hank Moody (David Duchovny) as he battles his personal demons and tries to overcome writers block. In season five, the narrative jumps forward two years and Hank is back in Los Angeles, writing a screenplay for a hot new film property. Others in the cast include Evan Handler, Madeleine Martin, Natascha McElhone, Karen Moody, and Pamela Adlon.
The half-hour show returned on Sunday, January 8th, and was paired with Don Cheadle’s new series, House of Lies. Californication brought in a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 758,000 total viewers. That was on par with the show’s demo rating for season four’s opener but about a 100,000 fewer viewers.
The next week did about the same and then week three took a big dive, dropping to a 0.3 demo rating and 395,000 viewers. Viewer data is scarce for the early seasons but it looks like that’s the show’s lowest total viewership since October 2007. The numbers came back up last Sunday, drawing a 0.4 in the demo and 748,000 total viewers.
While Californication is under-performing when compared to Shameless and House of Lies, it is doing better than it did in season four. That’s apparently good enough for Showtime.
The cable channel has renewed Californication, as well as Shameless and House of Lies. All three will go back into production in Los Angeles later this year. No further details of the renewal were released but it’s expected Californication will return for another 12 episodes sometime next winter.
There are eight more episodes remaining for season five and the last of them will air on April 1st.
What do you think? Are you glad that the show’s been renewed or was it time for the series to be cancelled instead?
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