Ratings for Void

[Uma]

PS. Can anybody tell me where I can get a detailed - semi detailed summary of last week's episode? [/B][/QUOTE]


I don`t know if I`m allowed to to this but the smallvillenews web page has a forum section with all that info.

[mikemike]

these last 2 episodes make the end of season 5 the biggest mess-up of the show's history for me. people left the show because they can't stand watching it go around in circles. nothing is happening. and even the things that are happening (milton fine) are too subtle for casual fans to catch on to.

tomb, hypnotic, and void have been really really awful. the writing has become sloppy and random. the editing and production is subpar. even if ANY fans were drawn in from the 100th episode, there is no reason for them to stick around when 3 out of the next 5 episodes are pretty dumb. even i find myself not looking forward to thursdays like i used to.

there were SO many ways to make this season great. they could have gone in so many directions, but chose not to do anything exciting at all except have lionel know clark's secret. even the path they took could have been more inspired. case-in-point... the clark and lana breakup. how forced and ridiculous and unsatisfying was that? we did not sit thru 4 1/2 seasons of this show to watch that.

[Small2]

As regards ratings, I'm not sure about Void's, but the Kryptonite News sections has all the ratings back to Thirst.

The quick answer is there has been a steady drop off since Reckoning, with a further sharp drop off for both Hypnotic and most likely Void.

Based on the Kryptonite ratings, the first part of Season 5 has been a steady 4.+/6, with Thirst and Reckoning being tops at 4.4/7. There was even an article in the LATimes after Lexmas saying SV has an average of 5.5 million viewers. After Reckoning, the ratings go 4.2, 4.0, 3.9, 3.4 and percent viewers going from 7 to 5.

Zap2It gives different numbers for total viewers but it appears to be close on percent viewers. Their ratings for Void are 2.6/4. For Hypnotic they were 2.8/5 (compared to 3.4/5 for Kryptonite).

Not only that but the ratings for the most recent repeats were abysmal; down in the ones. Much lower than the earlier repeats were.

At this rate SV will have blown away all the great press and ratings that it started the first part of Season 5 with, and may not make it to Season 6.

Fans definitely did not like the storyline of Reckoning or where the show is now headed. SV started out as a show of young innocence/love and is now a 20's something soap-opera freak show. The writing is formulaic, which is bad enough, but no longer relates to the long history of the characters, resulting in unbelievable storylines.

Too bad, as it had such great potential, as shown by the renewed interest of fans at the start of this season.

I wonder if AlMiles's work on Aquaman resulted in not enogh time being spent on SV, or they simply went for the $$?

[Naomi]

Re: No ratings for today, was it that bad?

I think the writers were originally thinking season 5 might be the last one, so storylines were progressing more. And then with the improved ratings, and a likely season 6, the pace slowed again.


And the promise of things changing in season 5, was probably what was helping the ratings. Before the writers become complacent again

[The General]

oooooook. so what about the ratings?

any news, was it bad or something?

[i]The writing is formulaic, which is bad enough, but no longer relates to the long history of the characters, resulting in unbelievable storylines.

[/B]

Whoa, i disagree with you 100%.

As a hardcore smallville fan, smallville has always been good with some minor flaws ( witch and spirit episode ), but overall, its superman all the way.

[Small2]

Naomi
I agree with you, and I'll even go further and pitch that AlMiles got greedy and have potentially killed their golden goose.

AlMiles in the first season stated that SV would be only four years, and at the end of Season Four Tom Welling stated he had no interest in playing in a fifth year, (although it might have been simply negiotiation tatics). Further TW has stated that it was felt that Season Five would be it as they would have the prerequisite 100 shows needed for syndication. If one knows when the story ends it makes it much easier to develop the best pacing of the storyline.

I agree that Season Five seemed to start out as the final season and the storyline reflected this. It was moving along nicely including the relationship between Clark and Lana and Lex. This was reflected in the consistent ratings of around 5.5 million viewers every week from the premier to Reckoning.

What appears to have happened is AlMiles and TPTB were pleasantly surprised by the excellent ratings SV was bringing in. All of a sudden you started hearing talk of a never ending show, Season 7, Season 10, etc.

To make this happen they needed in Reckoning to rewind the storyline. One can't bring the culmination of the Clark, Lana, Lex relationship to a close if you hope for a never ending show.

It backfired. After Reckoning there has been a steady decline in viewership with the last three shows showing an even steeper decline. One can do a linear trend analysis (ratings over time) and the decline is statistically significant, R2=0.69.

There has been a lost of over 1.5 million viewers since Reckoning and its ever downward.

What seems to be left is a hard core group of viewers who will watch it no matter where the storyline goes, in that the last three new shows have no more viewers than when they have shown reruns this season.

But here is where I think their greed killed the golden goose.

I read somewhere that they have sold around $100 million in past season DVDs and they get somewhere around $400,000 per rerun. This is where the real money is to be made. The show is so expensive to make that I'm not sure they make any money on the original showings.

I think that they have significantly diminished the potential market for both reruns and DVDs as everyone knows now where the storyline is going and its not where they wanted it to.

The known eventual breakup between Clark and Lana is not the positive but bittersweet ending that many viewers wanted; Clark is considered a whining momma's boy; Lex's turn to the darkside has taken so many detours, nobody knows who he is. The change from Clark to Superman is now based on guilt, (a Spiderman not Superman reason). Johnathan Kent dies, but didn't have to., etc. etc. I'm not sure the present storyline is fixable.

So should they have moved the storyline forward and ended it in Season Five on a positive note and then sat back and watched the $$ roll in from syndications and DVD sales, or gone for the long term programming believing the viewers would stick with them no matter how many times they rewound the clock (storyline).

I believe it shows that AlMiles are more concerned about making money than they were about the story. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with that as TV entertainment is a business. Its just that I believe if they had gone for the storyline they would have produced a much better series and made more money anyway. A waste of talent and story.

Karma.

[The General]

Lets hope the ratings go up, serious.

I think alot of people is missing out on whats coming to the show.

[Small2]

The General,
I'm glad you enjoy the show. It will be interesting to see how the last four shows pan out.

And to answer the question of No Rating for Void, here is the answer.

Using MediaWeek, (which is where KryptonSite gets their numbers) Void had an overnight rating of 3.4/5. Zap2It which uses a different Neilsen rating had a 2.6/4.

Fragile had the lowest rating of this season with a 3.1/5 from MediaWeek and 2.4/5 from Zap2It.