‘Timeless’ season 2: What is the potential renewal timeline?
Tonight marks the season 1 finale of “Timeless” on NBC, but we only hope that it is not the end of the series as a whole. There is still absolutely a demand out there to get more of the time-travel series, but it’s out of our hands. This will be the final decision of the network, who at one point seemed to be banking on the show as a big hit due to giving it the timeslot after “The Voice” following its premiere in the fall.
Since that time, the ratings admittedly have fallen, and it has not topped a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic or over 4 million viewers since December. It appears for the time being that the odds of the show coming back in its current timeslot are fairly low as a result. With “The Voice” being one of NBC’s biggest shows, they will likely want to use it as a lead-in to something new in hopes to boosting some ratings. This is a move that they’ve done with “The Blacklist,” “Blindspot,” and now this show, so you have to think that there could be opportunities in which to do this with another series starting in September.
The best options for the future of “Timeless” could be to either put the show on a night like Thursday that is already experiencing some struggles, or perhaps early on Fridays in the place of the soon-to-be-over “Grimm.” At the moment, this feels like the show’s best hope. It’s not a show that needs to air so late (it appeals to family viewers), so you could see if there is room to grow at 8:00 p.m. on Friday nights in the ball. Its current ratings would be closer to normal on that night, provided of course that it manages to keep most of them.
We wish we felt altogether confident one way or another in the future of the show, but at the moment NBC could be torn on determining its future. It’s easy to be confident in how the network feels about the show creatively, but there are issues — this feels like a reasonably pricey show to make, its ratings have fallen in the new year, and it’s a show that is produced in-house like a “Chicago Fire” or a “Law & Order: SVU.” Therefore, there may not be anywhere near as much of an investment around it from a network point of view.
Ultimately, we should learn come May one way or another if “Timeless” gets a chance to return. Fingers crossed — and be sure to check out the link here to read up further on some of what you should do