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.
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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.
I think the VERY long hiatus will ultimately doom the V TV series. I’ve unfortunately already forgotten the plot lines of where it was going. They cancelled INVASION (the TV series) much the same way and left everyone wondering what was going to happen next and left viewers all up in the air. I don’t think I will be able to get back into the series because of fears that they will ultimately cancel it. I want a reliable show that I can count on to get caught up in the story and not worry that they will cancel it… Read more »
v 2009 is really good it always the way the good shows get cancelled an the trash Stays it
V is the best the best thing on TV!
I cannot believe they are even contemplating axing this show. It’s brilliant. I agree, the story line should be beefed up. There are countless people, like me, who do not live in the USA that buy the show on iTunes or stream it online. Perhaps ABC is miscounting this important population. I watched the original and this one and both are brilliant. There is a load of crap on TV these days, why axe a good show? I actually looked forward to my Tuesday evenings….. 🙁
Will on of these damn networks give a show a chance. Unless you want to see and endless CSI program followed by bursts of Reality shows, let a M*****F**K*NG show run it’s course and BUILD A G.D. audience!!! Sara Connor, had SO much potential-gone Kings- What a fantastic job they did, sure it was soap’y but a very good drama Firefly- Do I even need to say Flash Forward- Excellent show, intellectual and well preformed Rome- Best Show Ever, but I do understand that it was very costly Unless you people want nothing more than 30 crap-tastic sitcoms. wake up… Read more »
I think the Corporate cheese heads screwed this one show up just like they did with all the others they had. Remember Defying Gravity and how they killed an excellent program only because they never advertised it at all. Same goes with V, they don’t advertise it either and these bone heads executives at ABC expect it to survive by hopes alone. The long hiatus will kill this show, that we all know will happen, my only hope is that SyFy will pick it up and run it on their Network. There it will survive.
I enjoyed the show. However I have no faith that the execs have the foresight to allow the show to build an audience. The long interruption is ridiculous. I suppose they can put another reality show or 2-stupid sitcoms in its place.
even though I have to watch it online I like both the old and new versions.The new version lacks in what the old version had but makes up fo it by adding new story lines (e.g. some of the visitors was sent ahead of the rest)
i wanna know where they get their statistic from bcuz i watch this every tuesday nite wen i can and if not watch it on the net the next day….it doesnt matter if its not similar 2 the old one …1 reason not alot of young ppl seen the old 1 and i tink the viewer of this series are younger folks… its a good series hope it doesnt get cancel…
I was an avid follower of the 1st V. The new V is not as exciting but the more I watched the better I liked it. When it stopped airing I head it was taken off do to similarities in tactics of our present administration. This was great, exposing what is occurring in our present day system. What personally attracts me to TV series/movies is believable technology and action. The better the gadgets the more I like it. What kills it is the soap opera mush producers have to throw in for fillers (time wasters). Save it for the Chick… Read more »
The new V was already a failure from the start. It does not compare at all to the old V. The old V was so much better! It will be cancelled soon but as far as I’m concerned, not soon enough!
I agree that this version of V was poorly thought out. This was demonstrated when the main character was able to penetrate a V ships high security area and kill a large amount of V’s before they had hatched, and get away with it without a problem. This was just bad writing and completely unbelievable, I can only hope that they disavow that this is even a remake of the V saga.
I am very dissapointed in the show being I also watched the original.This show is better than the first in the sense the actors are very good looking and much younger which is why it appeals to a much younger group and also the largest group of viewers in todays market.The only problem is the story to me is very weak it is based similarly to the first but some of the storylines are very common and have been used in many shows.The son of the FBi agent has a troubled relationship with his mother and so falls easy pray… Read more »
“V” The best show to come along, in a long, long time. Every one I know, stays up to see it. It is a topic of conversation, the nest day. Why would ABC excutives cancell it? They all must be BONE_HEADS! Instead of cancelling they should be making more
episodes. ABC BONEHEADS-ABC BONEHEADS
It’s ridiculous to talk abut cancelling “V” as it’s better than the original (I watched that too) and although a mid season break *will* break the flow, the producers should stay with this one. Too many prospective great shows have been cancelled without being given a real chance. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen to “V”.
v is a nice series