Tonight marks the last episode of The Event for 2010. NBC plans to relaunch the series in three months, on February 28th, after letting their new series The Cape have the timeslot. Is it a risky move? Not really. Ultimately, they don’t have much choice.
The Event follows Sean Walker (Jason Ritter), a young man who’s investigating the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend. He slowly begins to uncover the biggest cover-up in the history of the United States. Others in the cast include Sarah Roemer, Laura Innes, Ian Anthony Dale, Scott Patterson, Clifton Collins Jr., Taylor Cole, Lisa Vidal, Bill Smitrovich, Zeljko Ivanek, and Blair Underwood.
The series debuted in September to decent ratings with a 3.6 in the 18-49 demo and 10.88 million total viewers. That’s a healthy sampling but, considering all of the promotion that NBC put behind it, the programmers were likely disappointed by its third place rank in the timeslot.
While some viewers clearly love the show, more than half who watched the first episode have already lost interest. The Event has been losing viewers, sometimes as much as 15 or 20% in one week, and to date has never shown an increase week-to-week in the demo. The most recent installment garnered just a 1.7 rating in the demo and 5.19 million viewers.
You can blame the network for not doing a better job of promoting The Event but clearly there’s a problem with the series when people who already watch don’t feel compelled to return week after week.
Will this February “relaunch” help? Based on recent TV history, the answer is no. Just look at V and FlashForward. People who were interested in The Event have either already tried it and stuck around or given up on it. Those who haven’t watched previously are very unlikely to give a try because they assume that they’ve missed too much backstory already. On top of that, when the show returns, the ratings will likely be lower than what they are now. By the time The Event returns in February, many casual fans will have already gotten involved with other shows.
The one thing that The Event has going for it is the fact that it’s on NBC. The peacock network continues to struggle and The Event is currently the fifth most-watched scripted program on the network. If things go as expected, it will drop much lower on the list next year. Still, with the exception of The CW, NBC is the only network that would consider giving this series more time. They’ll surely let all 22 episodes air.
The Event returns on Monday, February 28th and will have 12 more original episodes to air at that point. Will there be a second season? We’ll have to wait and see but hopefully the producers will plan ahead and not end the show without any resolution.
What do you think? Does The Event have a chance for survival? What could NBC do to save this show? Anything?
Image courtesy NBC.
Save the Event. Enjoyable. Will watch it and watch re-runs!
Please keep The Event. Very interesting program!
Love The Event! Please keep the program. Lots of interesting subplots.
Please Save The Event! It is a very interesting program. It seems as though it was placed in the wrong time slot. I like the characters and the segues in the plot. Keep it going. My wife and I enjoy it!
The Event is a very interesting program. It seems as though it was placed in the wrong time slot. This program can grow on you, it did to me. I like the main characters the way the plot segues into its diversions (oxymoron?). Keep it going, there’s too much crap out there right now! I enjoy it and so does my wife.
When i first saw the previews for the Event, i knew in my heart of hearts it had to be about aliens and the secret the government has been hiding along with the true MAIN EVENT which will occur upon this planet. The previews never indicated exactly what the show was to be about. But I knew that the time was right. My beliefs were confirmed when I watched the first episode. There is a lot of nonessential information done for entertainment purposes in the episodes but there is also very credible information being revealed that the public needs to… Read more »
I love the Event. Don’t take it away forever.
this show has aliens in it right? is it like x-files or battlestar galactica? i liked those shows but i saw the premier episode of the event and thought it was kinda confusing. does the event become more like those other shows? thanks.
Catch 22 here. I think a lot of people like myself are afraid to invest their time in a new show they know they will love for fear the network will axe it. We just wait until it comes out on DVD. Of course that means less people watching it live which means lower ratings which means greater chance of it being axed! But, we’ve been bitten too many times in the past few years by shows that showed great potential.
I thing the show has lots of potential and with the news popping in science about the existence of extra-terrestrial life, this should a show that focus on this lines. I do not think a series about alien should expend to much time in police stories as it drifts from the main purpose of the series. There is so much to explore about the impact of extraterrestrial life on earth, its implications and how we humans would react about it. I think a good plot would follow these lines and bring to us some science mixed with emotional situations and… Read more »
I like the show, it is compelling because you don’t know what the other group’s intention is. The obviously want to stop the aliens at all cost but not sure what their agenda is.
I hope the show is not cancelled, I enjoy it.
Please bring it back. I look forward to it every week. It’s my favorite. I’ve never written comments on anything before, so that tells you how serious I am now.!!
The problem with this show is that it spends all the story on silly plot twists, like characters dealing with gun shot wounds, rather than getting down to the main event (no pun intended). After ten episodes, we know there are aliens that have spent every moment of their time year figuring out a way back home. There is a bad guy, who is probably an alien, too, abusing children, who are probably all the offspring of aliens, to achieve some evil goal. The problem is that none of this relates to the lives of average people. After ten episodes,… Read more »
I liked The Event alot when it first aired. but somewhere around episode 5 or 6 they dropped the ball and both the script writing and the acting went south. I still think it is possible to rescue this series and come up with a well written show. The basic talent is there as far as the actors are concerned and someone on the writing team knew what they were doing when the show first started shooting but that person either quit, was let go or is now on drugs because the past few episodes just haven’t worked very well.… Read more »
I’m hooked on The Event———-I watch it then DVR it and watch it a 2nd time to be sure that I did not miss anything.
Please Please bring it back!!!!!!!!!!!!