Christian Slater hasn’t had much luck in television (his three previous attempts were all cancelled) and ABC hasn’t been able to find a hit for their Tuesdays at 10pm timeslot. Is Mind Games a change of fortune for both of them or is this new series headed for cancellation as well?
Mind Games, follows two brothers/entrepreneurs (Slater and Steve Zahn) who use psychological manipulation to solve problems and to make people’s dreams come true. The rest of the cast includes Megalyn Echikunwoke, Wynn Everett, Gregory Marcel, Cedric Sanders, and Jaime Ray Newman.
The show debuted last week to a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 3.58 million viewers. It was a very disappointing start and the show was in third place in its timeslot. On the positive side, it wasn’t quite as bad as the premiere of the previous timeslot occupant, Killer Women.
This week however, Mind Games dropped a staggering 39% in the demo and 33% in overall viewership to a 0.6 rating with 2.39 million. That’s lower than any of Killer Women’s episodes.
After just two weeks, the new series has the lowest viewership average of any show on the network this season — even worse than Killer Women, Betrayal, The Assets, or Lucky 7. The latter two were cancelled after two episodes and it wouldn’t surprise me if the network didn’t give Mind Games the same treatment.
ABC ordered 13 episodes of Mind Games and its unlikely that they’ll let them all air — nevermind consider ordering a second season. They could move the show to Friday night but the network is already doing far better with its existing programming. ABC has been running movies on Saturday nights and they often pull in better numbers too. Whatever they do, the future does not look bright for Mind Games.
But, what do you think? Why do you think that it’s done so poorly? Is it worth watching? Do you think it should be cancelled?
I also , thought that this show was excellent I enjoyed every episode. I loved the characters, the acting, the storyline, the plot. It was a lot better than many other shows that are on ABC today, many of which i did not even finish the pilot cause it was so bad. I really really loved this show and I really wish that ABC would choose to at least air the remaining of season 1 so that the viewers can choose for themselves
I wished it had more of a chance. At first I wondered if I could tolerate the character Steve Zahn played but then that was kind of the point, of his character, and his ability to do what he did.. I do believe it had potential to be a really good show. With all the other really horrible shows on tv, this one would have been somewhat of an approvement. You at NBC didn’t give it a real chance, but you kept celebrity wife swap!? Really! What a mistake.
It was mediocre (as is the large majority of new shows) and I thought the premise was lousy at first. But, I watched much of all the episodes and I wish it would have continued as I changed my mind about the premise. So, I ended up liking the premise, which was the concept of their business operation. I’ve seen many shows that started weak and became good – and this one could have done it because it was enough different from everything else and it invited complexity; each show could be complex in its own way and yet be… Read more »
I have watched it faithfully every week and every week I say I am not watching next week. It just doesn’t keep your attention and to me boring most of the show.
I absolutely love this show and am very disappointed to see it cancelled so soon. I honestly think that with proper advertising and a real chance it would scoop up fans of the hit show ‘Psych’ which was recently drawn to a close after eight successful seasons. I saw that the network gave ‘Body Of Proof’ (a show i didn’t think would do very well from the start given how many like it there are) three seasons to prove itself but only gave ‘Mindgames’ a few episodes. I feel like advertising wasn’t done well and almost wonder (with the quick… Read more »