Ratings watch: ‘Hart of Dixie’ season 3 hurt, ‘Hannibal’ season 2 helped by latest numbers

The latest -We’re continuing to keep a watch on how some of the bubble shows are faring in the ratings, and the ones that are coming in now for Friday spell a decent chance of a “Hannibal” renewal … but also spell that “Hart of Dixie” may have some more trouble of getting a full 22 episodes than we first assumed.

Let’s start with the crew over at BlueBell. The show drew less than 700,000 viewers and just a 0.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic for Friday night’s “Together Again,” which is a shame since it was a pretty good episode that seemingly gets us closer to Zoe and Wade becoming an item again. Any show that gets a rating this bad, even on a Friday during a time of year when people want to be outside, is in danger of cancellation. There’s no other way around it.

While many networks do push for a full fourth season for syndication purposes, that’s not necessarily a guarantee. We still feel that it is likely that “Hart of Dixie” will be picked up, given that it’s cheaper than some other series (no visual effects). The situation we may find it in is an abbreviated final season of 6-13 episodes to tie together everything fans want to see.

As for “Hannibal,” the jury is still a little out. While the 1.1 rating it supposedly drew for last night’s excellent episode is good, it’s also skewed thanks to the Portland Trail Blazers game airing on NBC in Portland. We expect it to adjust down to a 1.0 or 0.9, but either one of these ratings is in line with what it has had lately. We still feel pretty confident that this show will be back, thanks mostly to the high quality more than anything else.

In case you are wondering why we’re not focusing on anything else, it’s because there is no reason to right now. “Shark Tank” won the night with an astounding 2.2, but it’s a given that it will be back. Everything else is either renewed, or the ratings are inconsequential.

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Photo: The CW

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