Last summer, I asked our readers to pick the fall season’s biggest new hit and biggest new flop. The wisdom of the crowds did OK, choosing Fringe as the biggest hit (it was the #2 new show of the fall) and choosing The Mentalist as hit #3 (it was the biggest success of the fall), but Knight Rider at #4 was a miss. On the flop side, the crowd nailed The Ex-List, one of the earliest shows to be cancelled, but completely missed the debacle that was the CW’s Sunday night.
I thought we’d do the same thing for the new mid-season shows (some have already begun). Here are my picks.
Biggest Hit: Lie to Me. It follows American Idol. If it’s half decent, it could go large.
Biggest Flop: Since Momma’s Boys and Game Show in My Head already shows signs of tanking, picking them would be too easy. I’ll go with the next easiest thing, picking the CW’s 13 – Fear is Real. It doesn’t match CW’s target demo, and is up against Lost and Idol.
Here is a recently updated mid-season broadcast schedule here.
What are your picks? And why?
Which new mid-season show will be the biggest HIT?
- Dollhouse (Fox - Friday) (45%, 633 Votes)
- Lie to Me (Fox - Wednesday) (20%, 288 Votes)
- Castle (ABC - Monday) (13%, 183 Votes)
- Kings (NBC - Thursday) (5%, 67 Votes)
- Harper's Island (CBS - Wednesday) (4%, 62 Votes)
- Superstars of Dance (NBC - Monday) (4%, 55 Votes)
- The Unusuals (ABC - Wednesday) (3%, 36 Votes)
- Cupid (ABC - Tuesday) (2%, 30 Votes)
- True Beauty (ABC - Monday) (2%, 23 Votes)
- 13 - Fear is Real (CW - Wednesday) (1%, 17 Votes)
- Game Show in My Head (CBS - Saturday) (1%, 11 Votes)
- Momma's Boys (NBC - Monday) (0%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,411
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Well, while 13 – Fear is Real will most certainly flop, it’ll take numbers in the sub million range to be considered a BIG flop for CW. So I don’t think it’ll be considered the biggest flop of mid season. So I’m going with Dollhouse.
I don’t see any shows being a hit. Dollhouse will probably be the most beloved of the canceled shows, however.
I’m with Julia — Dollhouse all the way. I’m not sure the wisdom of the crowds was wrong in not picking up the CW Sunday night shows, it just wasn’t interested enough in it to care. Even Nielsen “discounts” the CW these days:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6623130.html
Also, Fear is Real is fully intended as a limited run from the get go (I can’t remember if it is 4 or 8 episodes, but once the next cycle of ANTM is upon us, it’s it will be done — so I’m not sure it is fair to compare to a show like Lie to Me.
Similarly, Momma’s Boys is just a January show. If it had done very well, that might not have been the case, but it also was intended as a limited run.
Sorry for the post spam, but I originally posted this rant on the referenced article that I didn’t realize I had click throughed to.
I wish that I could vote Superstars of Dance for biggest flop, repeatedly.
The FCC should levy millions of dollars worth of fines on NBC for The Superstars of Dance. It’s as if t.v. executives have taken a time machine back to the twenties to coopt their ideas of having a celebration extravaganza to show us Americans all dem weird foreign cultures. They have dancers from India, South Africa, China, Ireland, Russia and Argentina, but apparently they are completely isolated from the current world dance standards, so all they do are the most stereotypical “cultural” dances possible. The Indian dancers have the most ridiculously over the top Bollywood ensembles I have ever seen. The Chinese judge is dressed like a Buddhist monk to match to match the Russian judge next to him wearing a bright blue kosovorotka. All the celtic dancers appears to be background dancers from Riverdance and most egregious of all, apparently the only dancers from South Africa are Zulu dancers, who even when competing on an American t.v. game show still dress in their traditional garb.
Also, from what bits and pieces I’ve seen so far, all of the American, British, Irish, Russian and Australian dancers are white, while all South African dancers are black. There was a dancer born and raised in the U.S., but of Indian descent and they have her competing as an “Indian Dancer”. As a fan of So You Think You Can Dance I hoped that this show would be an opportunity to collect the best dancers in the world and have them compete and demonstrate their dancing chops as individuals, beyond borders. But instead this garbage has been nothing more than NBC playing “let’s see how many national stereotypes we can exploit and reinforce.” The dancers aren’t individuals, they’re only conduits for the stereotypes that NBC wishes to feed the viewer. I weep that this show has even made it onto air. NBC honestly deserves to have its must-carry privileges revoked – their new programming philosophy is to make as many cheap, ###### reality shows as possible and hope that enough people randomly leave their t.v.s on at night to make them show up on the Nielsen numbers. This garbage should not be broadcast on the public air waves.
I predicted Ex-list. I saw a 1 sentence summary on epguides.com and knew it was going to be a flop.
I removed the link from the excerpt, I can see how clicking on it there would be wacky.
I’d agree that on a relative basis (i.e. vs. expectations early in its development process) Dollhouse is my pick to be the biggest flop too.
I don’t see Dollhouse doing well AT ALL. It’s on a bad night for Fox, the concept doesn’t seem all that clear and quickly explanatory, and I also feel like some people who might have otherwise watched will shy away because they expect the show to fail. Self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way. When’s the last time Fox got decent numbers on Friday anyway? And not all the shows they’ve had there in recent years have been bad, either.
No one has yet commented on why they think Dollhouse will be a hit, although it’s running second in that poll at the moment.
I picked Lie to Me as biggest hit. Great timeslot, concept is pretty quick and easy to grasp, good early buzz, Tim Roth is in it.
Game Show in My Head?!? Never even heard of that one before.
If “hit” is defined by network expectation for ratings, I think “Game Show In My Head” shall be the biggest flop. CBS seems to know this already – notice how it’s already being burned off by airing during football playoffs. I don’t give “Cupid” much of a chance either – the concept didn’t work 10 years ago, and has your average TV viewer (Nielsen family) changed habits all that much?
I agree with the results that “Lie to Me” will be the biggest midseason hit. As for “Dollhouse,” it’s a tricky call. If FOX has high expectations, it may very well be doomed. If FOX intends on giving it time to gain some footing, it may be fine. I honestly don’t know how to predict that one. “Harper’s Island” may have a shot at success too; however, CBS has pretty high ratings expectations. HI will need to be pretty monstrous, Nielsen-wise, to be considered a CBS hit.
And BTW Robert, the article you linked is not the only killshot at the CW recently. Sometime in the last month or so, TV Guide Print Edition has dropped the CW from its listings. It’s still in the online listings. I have no idea why this happened. Any chance you know anyone who knows why it was dropped? If it’s purely on ratings, why does the print edition still carry ION?
I’m hoping NBC’s Kings is going to be huge. The premise of the show sounds original and very unique.
I predict Dollhouse will be the biggest flop. Joss Whedon, FOX, Friday night. Fail.
4 WORDS!-
CUPID
CASTLE
THE UNUSUALS!
ABCFanatic, those will be flops or hits?
The biggest hits will still be the returning series – Lost & 24 – but in terms of new series, it’s gotta be Lie To Me, the show FOX is most surely grooming as a supplement to the powerhouse-drama of House (seeing as how Fringe hasnt gone as gangbusters as many would have predicted)
Dollhouse will fail in the simple premiere that the concept is too confusing for the average viewer…i mean, when you get people who are still confused over how the Idol process works, then….
Kings sounds quite interesting, and the previews look top-notch – hopefully it can do a Heroes and jump right out of the blocks with some surprisingly strong numbers
Then again, you can’t hope for too much rating-wise from a NBC program at 10/9c on a Sunday
Sorry i take back that Sunday comment about Kings!
Dollhouse doesn’t stand a chance. Fox promoted it back in the early fall, but then (according to reports) the entire show disintegrated, with Whedon having to re-shoot the entire pilot, take a three week “break” from filming, and having to make extensive revisions to the scripts. Now, rather than a January premiere as planned, it’s premiereing in February on Friday nights. Whedon will get some Buffy and Firefly fans to tune in, but if this show is as awful as it appears to be, he may alienate even those fans.
Why do so many people think Lie To Me is going to do well? That show also strikes me as having a dubious premise. “A-hah! The suspect wiggled his eyebrow funny. That’s proof he’s lying, but see, when he scratched his left elbow while lying, it is proof that he has unresolved psychological trauma from his childhood. Put two and two together, and it’s obvious he killed his wife and stuffed her body……in his old toy box!”
13- Fear is Fake will be a bigger flop than In Harms Way. Dollhouse will be the most notable flop as CW is an imploding network and most people dont even bother with it any more. Dollhouse fans will of course blame TSCC for its demise along with the time slot. TSCC fans will blame lack of a lead in and time slot for its demise. Both fan groups will then beat each other to a pulp.
Biggest hit? Lie to Me – possibly or it could be a huge flop.
I’m with Outlander. Lie to me sounds like another Psych clone. Just because Tim Roth is the lead it doesn’t meen that it will work.
The Unusuals have a great cast and it’s very promising, but it has a terrible time slot up against L&O and CSI:NY. I hope ABC will take into account NBC’s surrender of 10 PM next fall.
Tom,
but the last “Pysch Clone” The Mentalist (and I say that with quotes because it really isn’t), turned into a “cyclone” ratings hit.
The test for Fox, however, is to deliver its first scripted hit since the premiere of Prison Break in Fall 2005.
Going with Lie to Me as the biggest hit is frankly cheating – Fox is continuing to let House’s numbers suffer at 8pm to give Lie a cozy AI connection; they clearly expect it to do well. I’d like (but do not necessarily expect) Kings to do well – it has the ER timeslot and is the only new show NBC produced this year that is well regarded by outsiders. I expect it to premiere well and then fade rapidly.
Defining flops is also difficult – half the options are defacto canceled shows (Head/Boys/Fear/Dance/Harper/Doll). Expectations also fall into this: is it fair to call Harper’s the biggest flop when it will garner the worst ratings for the year on that network (CBS), even if it will get more viewers than half the other shows on that list?
IMO, the ratings most worth keeping an eye on are ABC shows, namely Castle & The Unusuals. I don’t expect Unusuals to do well – The Job didn’t do well years ago, and the minor structural changes (female lead) aren’t enough to break it out of the cable programming where it belongs (see Rescue Me). Castle is also tough to judge – ABC’s Friday Women’s Murder Club died an early death last year, but the Dancing tie-in and male family lead should give it a bigger (albeit older) audience than Murder Club garnered.
I admit for biggest flop I picked Momma’s Boys. I cheated I know.
I picked Kings for biggest hit, not because I think it well get the most viewers or fantastic demos, but I think it could have a big positive impact on NBC.
If any other show turns out to be a hit, it won’t matter as much. Even a small hit on NBC could make a big difference.
Bah, perhaps I should rename myself to Tom #6, given how many of us there are. One minor correction: I think Harper will get the worst _scripted_ ratings on CBS this year.
And Andrea, “The test for Fox, however, is to deliver its first scripted hit since the premiere of Prison Break in Fall 2005.” You don’t consider Fringe a hit? Or are you limiting this to shows produced by Fox?
Oh, and Kings is at 11:00 Thursdays, which doesn’t have the stiffest competition. It’s going up against Eleventh Hour (barely hangs on as a lead-in off of CSI) and Private Practice (Might improve after Grey’s Anatomy, but will never be a mega-hit) and it’s taking ER’s place, which is right now one of NBC’s top-rated shows.
Hit–Lie To Me. Despite similarities to The Mentalist, I think this has the best chance of hitting. Procedurals overall are doing great right now and LTM will follow Idol, so it will get a huge sampling. The biggest disadvantage is that it will be opposite Criminal Minds and Lost.
Flop–The Castle. Game Show in My Head, Momma’s Boys, and Superstars already started, so it doesn’t seem fair to choose them. Dollhouse seems the easy pick, but with it being shipped off to Friday with the failing Terminator, I don’t think the expectations are high enough to call it the biggest flop when it fails. While procedurals are big, ABC has not had any luck with them lately. I think they’ll have the same problem with this one as they’ve had before by trying to be too cute about it.
How long was FOX around before people considered it a legitiamate part of the “BIG” networks?
Tom,
Okay, I forgot about Fringe. It’s FOX’s biggest success, but I’m not sure I’d qualify it as a hit.
I think “Lie to Me” will be the biggest hit, “Dollhouse” biggest flop. I’m going purely on marketing push, show types and timeslots.
BIG DADDY, Fox started in 1986. They started NFL broadcasts in 1993. Soon after the NFL broadcasts started, I think most folks thought of them as being in the same competitive league as ABC, CBS and NBC.
UGH! I don’t want to have to pick between Castle and Dollhouse! But granted those two are what *I* want to be the biggest hits – not what I think will actually be
Judging from the numbers, Whedon fans are stuffing the ballot boxes! Perfectly legal, but still.
We can’t be far off in time from posts with comments like “and when TSCC gets cancelled, maybe Whedon will get Summer Glau to star on ‘Dollhouse’!”
Yippee! I can’t wait. Ok, I can wait.
And Robert’s the first one to make a veiled accusation! How not surprising. You get the link, you get the hits but still.
The thing is, buffywrestling, he’s probably not wrong. Trust me, I’ve been following this site for a long time (it’s easily the best TV ratings website around) – and that kind of thing happens all the time. (I call it the Moonlight effect nowadays). The article is linked on Whedonesque.com, in case anybody is wondering.
*waves to Gossi* Yes, I know. I’ve lurked here a long time and I’m at whedonesque. But sometimes snark leads to snark, if you see what I’m saying. There was no reason to start when it is perfectly apparent to everyone who has been here a while knew that this trend would happen. So do you ignore it or or do you bitch about it? Robert and I chose bitch. (And just for the record, I chose Dollhouse as the biggest hit and the biggest flop. Suck on that, stupid poll).
Wierd…DOLLHOUSE is currently voted the biggest hit & the 3rd biggest flop (SO FAR)…it loks like “by the numbers” bloggers are split…I will be giving DOLLHOUSE a chance due to me & my wife’s devoted viewing of SARAH & FRIENDS coming to Fridays…
I am betting Dollhouse will be the biggest hit and most loved by it’s watchers, and then fox will kill it within a week making it the biggest flop. By the numbers I think others might agree with me. Or there are just a lot of haters out there!
Castle sounds like a remake of Murder She Wrote with a male lead, so I am not sure how that will turn out. It might be interesting though, and we know Murder she wrote lasted for freekin ever!
“Suck on that, stupid poll” may be my favorite all-time comment on this blog.
Buffy, at the time I had made my comment above I didn’t realize there was a Whedon site (Whedonesque.com) linking to the poll. My comment wasn’t intended to be veiled in anyway, though I can’t at all deny that I chose “bitch”.
Andrea, you wouldn’t call Fringe a hit but you would call Prison Break a hit? Interesting.
BIG HIT, one of these? yeah right! But in comparison LIE TO ME might pull decent numbers but would lose badly to LOST
Lie to Me is the clear cut choice for best hit potential — I’m sure critics will eat up another “darling” in Tim Roth.
Superstars of Dance will be eaten alive by House and CBS. NBC will be happy to bring Chuck back 2/2/08.
When I linked this site to Whedonesque I didn’t think of it as a bad thing. Just a opportunity for the Whedon fans to express their opinion. Not all Whedon fans are optimist. Some think it might fail.
Some are like me who would like to watch a couple of episodes first.
I don’t see why Dollhouse would be considered a flop anyway, everyone (including FOX) is expecting it to fail miserably. A flop should be a show that has a legitimate chance at a long run, as to which I’ll have to go with Kings. If this show were on any network but NBC, I would choose something else, but this will be another disappointment to tack onto a horrible year for NBC.
I’ll go with Lie to Me for biggest hit. FOX is promoting the crap out of it every night, and plus, doesn’t it have one of the coveted post American Idol timeslots?
CASTLE, THE UNUSUALS AND CUPID FOR THE HIT!
MOMMA’S BOY, TRUE BEAUTY AND DOLLHOUSE FOR THE FLOP
I think Joss could produce a YouTube clip of two possums gettin’ it on, and within a month there’d be a convention for it.
Julia, Prison Break was a hit when it premiered. Fringe’s viewership is dropping week after week, even with House as its lead-in. It’s getting beaten by The Mentalist in the 18-49 demo now. Also considering Fringe’s (probably) high production costs…
Fringe isn’t the biggest flop if you only look at the numbers (and the current state of network TV) but I don’t think it’ll be around as long as Prison Break has.
Jon, Fringe a flop? It was the #2 new show of the fall. Did someone in the production company do you wrong in the past?
Not to mention, it has the #1 C3 hold across the board. (At least it did when Nielsen last released those numbers.)
nathan fillian will make Castle a hit. He is the next superstar!!
Regarding the hit status of “Fringe” and “Prison Break,” I would agree that PB was a hit, by the numbers and by the buzz (magazine stories, Wentworth Miller interviews…) when it premiered. It’s ratings have taken a dive.
“Fringe” is a freshman hit by FOX standards, along those same lines. By the numbers, it’s holding the critical youth demos and, as Julia said, the critical-to-advertisers C3 rating. Plenty of magazine and online buzz about little Pacey all grown up; about the show in general; and even a couple blurbs about the excelled supporting role of Astird (the name of the actor escapes me).
Excluding repeat episodes, how many times did “The Mentalist” beat “Fringe” in the 18-49 demos? Maybe once that I recall. I’ll back-check that to be sure. As to whether “Fringe” can last as long as PB, I’d like to hope so but it’s a hazy picture at best. “Fringe” could fly off the rails, story-wise, with just one too-contrived plot twist. Anna Torv could let those pained and blank facial expressions get the better of her, to the point that not even John Noble and Joshua Jackson can make the show worthwhile. I’d expect get a better idea of where the show is headed by season’s end.
What’s interesting is that a friend of mine asked me recently if Fringe really is on the brink of cancellation. Apparently he was hearing rumors that it is. I have no idea where rumors like that would have started considering it’s FOX’s second highest rated scripted show for the Fall.
Julia,
Cancellation rumors? Wow! That’s kind of funny to me and I don’t know why. Perhaps the show really did run off the rails the second half of this season, and some insiders with access already know that, LOL! Now I wonder if some higher-ups at FOX think the show’s got nowhere to go but down?
Fringe is definitely the kind of show that could drop in viewers at a breakneck pace. It doesn’t take too long to lose interest in riduculous plot twists that serve only to prolong a story that should have ended already (*cough*PRISON BREAK*cough*). Just my opinion there.
“[Fringe] it’s FOX’s second highest rated scripted show for the Fall.”
Wrong. That’s Bones. With no lead-in.
In the demo, Ricardo? I can check more thoroughly later, but to my knowledge Fringe beats Bones there.
Not accounting for my holiday time (latest numbers up today or tomorrow):
Fringe (4.699m) > Bones (4.200m) for 18-49 demo
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/23/fans-of-terminator-life-knight-rider-gary-unmarried-should-look-on-the-bright-side/9940
Argue amongst yourselves about discounting the lead in.
if we’re going to ponder and opine on questions that can never really be answered, I’d prefer to ponder this:
What would have happened if the NBC Universal produced House was not passed on by the NBC network, but instead picked up by it?
I don’t thing Fringe is a flop, but I do think it is performing well below expectations. The C3 ratings are more a commentary on the limited commercial experiement than on the show itself.
Bill, the reason Fringe is #2 among new shows is because almost all of the new shows are performing badly. Fringe would be doing much worse without House. Its ratings right now are probably sufficient to get it a second season but probably not further than that. It is the #2 new show this fall, but it’s probably the most expensive new show as well, and Fox had much higher expectations especially when pairing it with House.
Actually, I forgot that Fringe is going to be after AI mid-season. That’ll definitely help it. It’s still an expensive and lead-in dependent show, though.
Jon, you could say every non-8pm start show is “lead-in dependent”. For the fall, Fringe was Fox’s #4 show. At that level it’s sticking around for a long time. And what gives you the idea that it’s particularly expensive for a scripted show?
Bill, I was wondering that same thing about expenses. I was also wondering where Fringe is filmed? I recall that “X-Files” filmed in Canada for cost purposes, for example.
Although I really like Fringe, but I am not yet confident as to how long it will stick around. I’m not yet confident it can stay at its current level, regardless of lead-in. They could go all “Heroes” on us, and then watching would just be too confusing to bother!
clutz, of course the show’s ratings could fall, but then, so could any show’s. And lots of other things could happen too, but at current course and speed, it’s fine.
Bill: “Jon, you could say every non-8pm start show is ‘lead-in dependent’. For the fall, Fringe was Fox’s #4 show. At that level it’s sticking around for a long time. And what gives you the idea that it’s particularly expensive for a scripted show?”
Well, it did have the second most expensive pilot ever. If ‘Fringe’ had better retention out of ‘House’, then I probably would think that it is a more than a timeslot hit. It seems to me that if it was cut off from ‘House’, it would suffer a bit of a decline and may fall into non-hit territory. If it had higher numbers in the first place, then it might fall without ‘House’, but it would have started higher to begin with. Yeah?
I think that everyone had really high expectations for ‘Fringe’, but for some reason, FOX debuted it before the fall season and it only got 9 million Live + SD viewers for its pilot. Its nice 6 demo was overshadowed by its lack of viewers. ‘Lost’ premiered to twice as many on the #4 network at the time (also without a lead-in). Even J.J. Abrams’ other (cancelled) shows like ‘What About Brian’ started up with 13 million. And by the end of November sweeps, ‘Fringe’ was down at the high 7 millions Live + SD and getting beaten in the demo by CBS’s crime procedurals, ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and ‘Charlie Brown’ specials. What if it did not have the ‘House’ lead-in then? High 5 millions and a low 2 demo? Not unlikely and what kind of a hit is that? And it is expensive.
Not everything is lead-in dependent. Take ‘Lost’, for example. It aired the first part of its most recent season as a self-starter and returned as a lead-out of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, yet it produced very similar numbers on both sides of its midseason hiatus. Or how about ‘House’? It is doing fine as a self-starter and it certainly did not used to rely on its ‘Bones’ lead-in.
The ‘American Idol’ lead-in will surely boost ‘Fringe’’s viewership and will likely get it past its lead-in dependence for next fall. But for now, I think that ‘Fringe’ is a timeslot hit.
*Edit to my last (very long) comment: “then I probably would think that it is a more than a timeslot hit” should read “then I probably would not think that it is so much of a timeslot hit” or something along those lines.
Yeah, the Fringe pilot cost something like 10 million. Ratings wise, Fringe is doing okay, but considering how much it probably costs per episode, Fox was probably expecting much more.
Bill, Fringe is particularly lead-in dependent, though. Its heavily promoted pilot debuted to only 9 million while the second episode (which was after House’s premiere) got 13 million. That’s a pretty noticeable bump. Of course, it’s settled back down to 8 million-ish, but you can’t expect the whole 8 million to come from the 9 million who watched the pilot. Plus, Fringe’s demo success is largely based on House – without it, it’d probably be in the mid or low 2’s by now.
Bill,
I’ll touch on this more later (when the Tuesday ratings come in), but TM is no longer lead-in dependent. It’s turning into a bigger hit than NCIS.
I think FOX was looking for Fringe to have the same effect out of House.
DOLLHOUSE=MASSIVE FLOP & TSCC WILL GET EVEN WORSE….IF THATS EVEN POSSIBLE NOT THAT I CARE I HATE THE PIECE OF CRAP!
Dang, Dollhouse is way ahead on the biggest hit poll! O.O
By the way, you guys should have a poll where we can all vote for our favorite show. Not like I can’t tell what shows are the favorites here by the comments, but an actual poll would be pretty nifty, me thinks.
I think ABC should have a hit new show this year because their last hit new show was Ugly Betty which is way back 2006 and last year and last last year they didnt had any new hit show.
I think either Castle or The Unusuals will be a big hit and Cupid will be cancelled.
Im excited about Harper’s Island its not a produceral yay
Castle is a hit with me!