‘Hell on Wheels’ season 4, episode 6 ratings: ‘Bear Man’ recovers from Labor Day Weekend low

Once again, “Hell on Wheels” has sent us a pretty stable reminder that when it comes to their ratings, there is really not anything to worry about.

Last week, we expressed our sadness at the show having its least-watched Saturday-night episode ever, though we did attribute some of it to the hour airing over Labor Day Weekend, when people may have been off doing other things. Luckily, the show rebounded this time around. Per TVbythenumbers, the Common-centric episode “Bear Man,” which was a departure from the typical hour of the show, drew a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and also 2.157 million viewers. Both of these are noticeable rises from the previous week, and put it also up in viewers from the sixth episode of season 3. We watch the year-to-year comparisons just because this is something that a network could look at if they want to justify a cancellation. This is what happened with “Longmire,” and we’re still ticked off about it.

While this decision is ultimately still AMC’s to make, we feel reasonably confident still that we’ll get another season of “Hell on Wheels” at the very least. It is a solid performer, does well in DVR viewing, and above all else gives the network a good insurance policy in the event that “Better Call Saul” (which has a two-season commitment) struggles or if this long-awaited spin-off to “The Walking Dead” is put out of its misery like a zombie at the hands of Daryl Dixon.

We’ll continue to follow the ratings for the rest of the season, but “Hell on Wheels” should not be impacted much by the network fall season kicking off. After all, no major network chooses to include substantial new programming on Saturday 99% of the time.

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Photo: AMC