Ratings: Prison Break a big disappointment

[WyldeMan45]

Fox's Prison Break began its long walk into the sunset Friday night, with the first of its final episodes airing in a new time slot. Either people forgot to update their calendars, Prison Break lost some of its luster, or Friday night is just a graveyard for Fox, because the numbers were a big disappointment.

The first new episode of Prison Break in months drew only 3.38 million viewers and a 1.2 rating in the important 18-49 adults demo, according to TV By the Numbers. Those numbers are pretty much on par with the time slot's previous resident, the soon-to-be-cancelled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

While Fox isn't expecting any breakout ratings from the remaining episodes of Prison Break, the network (and Whedonites) was hoping that Prison Break could boost the ratings of the beleaguered Dollhouse as the two shows play buddies on Friday nights for the remainder of their seasons. Prison Break's low numbers are another obstacle for Dollhouse to overcome for renewal.

Let's play pretend for a second: put yourself in the shoes of Fox executives and let us know how you would have scheduled Dollhouse, Terminator, and Prison Break?

http://www.tv.com/story/14083.html?r...ref_name=story

[Astalder]

Terminator on any other night than Friday, at this point I agree with getting rid of Dollhouse, Prison Break should have been axed a long time ago.

I'd pair Terminator with Bones on Thursday. Reality television should be illegal but if we have to have it and people aren't required to vote for it it should be at 10 est.

[Trix]

1) I think you have to be a pretty unknowledgeable executive to wonder why a show scheduled on a Friday night does not get good ratings. Moving the show to Friday was my first guess that Fox gave up on it.

2) You need something way, way, way more exciting than the Fall finale to hook people for over, was it, 4 months? Not something that can be dismissed as another stupid plot line. Something way more major than what they tried. So, a lot of people won't care to see how it's resolved.

3) You have to be a bonehead to revive a dying show at the start of the hockey playoffs. Obviously this is biased coming from Canadia-land, but hockey playoffs draw way more viewers than regular season hockey, and since the teams in the playoffs this year are all over the map, there is interest in most regions of North America for hockey. And their timeslot conflict with the end or beginning of most games. So, Fox are boneheads to begin with.

Just my two cents.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Astalder

Terminator on any other night than Friday, Prison Break should have been axed a long time ago.

+1

[movielib]

Originally Posted by Trix

3) You have to be a bonehead to revive a dying show at the start of the hockey playoffs. Obviously this is biased coming from Canadia-land, but hockey playoffs draw way more viewers than regular season hockey, and since the teams in the playoffs this year are all over the map, there is interest in most regions of North America for hockey. And their timeslot conflict with the end or beginning of most games. So, Fox are boneheads to begin with.

Basketball playoffs get much higher ratings than hockey, at least in the US. But go Blackhawks and Lakers!

And I'm going to watch Prison Break to the bitter end.

[Rblu-Dblu]

Ummm yea when the target demographic isnt home in the time slot you select, what kind of ratings do you expect? Me and the rest of the people who like prison break and terminator could have told them that.

[javabear]

Terrible timeslot for Terminator and Dollhouse. Not many young people are sitting around watching TV on Friday night. It's the time to go out!

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by Trix

3) You have to be a bonehead to revive a dying show at the start of the hockey playoffs. Obviously this is biased coming from Canadia-land, but hockey playoffs draw way more viewers than regular season hockey, and since the teams in the playoffs this year are all over the map, there is interest in most regions of North America for hockey. And their timeslot conflict with the end or beginning of most games. So, Fox are boneheads to begin with.

While I do agree that Fox is filled with a bunch of boneheads, they are trying to revive Prison Break. They brought it back to show the last remaining episodes to finish the show (not counting the movie that will actually finish it completely).

[Mike53421]

Friday was the warmest day of the year and we were out on the patio Friday night, not in front of a TV watching Prison Break. It's a bad timeslot, and yeah NHL playoffs, we had that on. I watched all of Prison Break up to now and I honestly just don't care about the ending, I read some spoilers already and will probably whip through the final five after they air just for completion sake.

[Clark Kent]

Friday and even Saturday used to be viable prime-time television spots. But with the dip in all viewing numbers, there simply is not a big enough pool of younger viewers to sustain a show on these nights. Why the networks try to put shows on Friday with the hope of catching the younger demographics is stupid business policy.

[gnash]

I watched the first season and thought it was pretty good. When season two, three, etc. etc. etc. followed, I figured they must not be very good at breaking out of prison because they keep getting caught. Kinda lost me on that one...

[metsfan1545d]

not suprising prison break tanked

they took the show off the air for 4 months, didnt promote it once until a week before it aired, gave it a crap timeslot, and let countless spoilers reach the internet.

Parts of the scripts were leaked for all the remaining episodes even the movie.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by metsfan1545d

not suprising prison break tanked

they took the show off the air for 4 months, didnt promote it once until a week before it aired, gave it a crap timeslot, and let countless spoilers reach the internet.

Parts of the scripts were leaked for all the remaining episodes even the movie.

I thought this show had been canceled until about 3 weeks ago when I read an article telling me otherwise. I hadn't even seen it listed for like a year, but once my DVR is set I never look for anything else anyways.

[hardcorefrokid]

I stopped watching after they went back to prison, for the second or third time. I found it to be quite repetitive.

[Galley]

The first part of season 4 was somewhat exciting; now I just want them to put the show out of its misery.

[mpstjohn]

Maybe now FOX will realize that no matter what they put in that time slot its bound to fail. If Prison Break couldn't grab a sizable audience on Friday night nothing can. Just bring back The Sarah Connor Chronicles already. I could do without Dollhouse though.

Put Sarah Connor next to Fringe on Tuesday nights.

I stumbled upon Prison Break while flipping through the channels and was surprised to see it. I thought it wasn't coming back for another week or two. Its a shame where the show has ended up. Its basically turned into Heroes with the twists involving the villains being related to the good guys and the main character's brother (in Heroes Peter's brother, in Prison Break its Lincoln) flip flopping between working for the good guys and the bad guys every week.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by hardcorefrokid

I stopped watching after they went back to prison, for the second or third time. I found it to be quite repetitive.

Same thing for me, I just didn't see a point in going beyond 2 seasons, it's a very very repetitive show.

[tarik]

so aswell as these extra episodes they are also doing a film?

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by tarik

so aswell as these extra episodes they are also doing a film?

Just looked this up for you, doesn't look like the tv movie is a definite prospect right now.


Executive Producer Matt Olmstead
Apr. 17, 2009

And at the end of the series, is there a small door left open for any follow-up movies or anything like that down the line?
I think there always is. Some people don't make it, but not to say that there couldn't be, if there was an appetite for it, some form of the show or a standalone episode or a movie type of thing. There's always that possibility.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b119..._Episodes.html

[metsfan1545d]

Originally Posted by tarik

so aswell as these extra episodes they are also doing a film?

a direct to dvd movie to wrap up the series has already been filmed and is being released july 21st, its called prison break the final break