Ratings: ‘Utopia’ hits another new low, and paradise may be over soon
We have heard that Fox plans on being extremely patient with “Utopia,” and the low-rated reality series is really putting that patience to the test right now.
For its latest episode on Friday night, the show drew a new series low of 0.5 in the 18-49 demographic, which is around the level that “The Quest” was getting over on ABC, and that show is most likely not going to be coming back. What’s the difference between the two? We feel like ABC felt an obligation to the fans to see the story through on “The Quest,” and they had already spent all their money shooting their episodes. “Utopia” is still in progress over on Fox, and with each passing day comes more and more money being put into it.
By our estimation, there is zero doubt that “Utopia” closes long before its originally-planned time of a year. It may not even last the next couple of weeks. Our guess, though, is that the show will create a “finale” for itself before Fox goes off the air for the MLB Playoffs, and then calls it a day. This at least lets the show leave with a little bit of dignity intact, rather than just closing Utopia one day under mysterious circumstances.
We still feel like this was a risk worth taking for Fox, and the premise of the show was not so much the problem. Instead, we blame the failure on casting a ton of insane people who nobody really wanted to care about, let alone watch. This is why we have ratings now that are a third of what they were at the time the show premiered.
We’ll continue to have some other updates on the show as they come out, so be on the lookout for those. Also, sign up to get some further TV scoop on all we cover via our official newsletter!
Photo: Fox
FireMan
October 10, 2014 @ 3:59 am
The cast is not interesting. The pregnant single woman is a miscast character. The lazy millennial and the hillbilly? Who thought that combination in casting would be intriguing? Maybe this one looked good on paper but the truth is it stinks.
Dwight Mart
October 7, 2014 @ 4:57 pm
This show has so many poor picks by fox to start this off and fox gives no power to the viewers to vote them out and get creative people in there. Aaron is the absolute worse! he controls people using the food he prepares. He claims to be a chef but very seldom prepares enough for them to eat. So why don’t they vote him out? I believe it’s because they all are to lazy to prepare their own meals. Most of them work about 2-3 hours a day which leaves a lot of time to select someone to target, they make up lies about the person and usually Mike, Aaron and Kristen plot these schemes. It is hard to watch without getting angry, I am talking about it’s hard for those on premium 24/7 viewing that see it all. A bigger problem, yes a bigger problem, The sound is horrible and not being addressed. They, production, claims it’s editing and blocking the audio but it doesn’t take long to see that is false. You get four feeds and most of the time they will be showing the same thing. A major Fox fail that they are not trying to fix. If these issues are not addressed it will fail quickly, if they care.
Ann Martin
October 5, 2014 @ 6:39 am
The show is falling in ratings because they quit following the reality of the show and started making it up as they go along because of the self-centered, shady characters they have in there. Instead of showing the back-stabbing and stealing that was going on because they decided to cover for those characters and started writing scripts of their own.
They basically had too. 3/4th were too lazy to even shower, much less try and build something. The only leader that emerged was Mike, who turns out to be one of the most shady guys in there. We had high hopes for Mike as the group’s leader until he was confronted by Dave and Red and didn’t have the balls to stand up to them, so he does what every coward does in Utopia, he dropped out, and started being the group joker. And that’s in between covering for the Chef Shady who within a week was stealing from the group by double billing on the grocery receipts and destroying the second receipt. Mike is the bookkeeper and those cash shortages have to be deleted, ya know?
Chef Shady, also known as Aaron has done absolutely nothing to build a Utopia, except to manipulate the others by starvation. This way he stay on control and power. Aaron thinks he’s playing Big Brother. He projects all his bad behavior onto others and they have to fear his wrath and also don’t get but a spoonful ….. He has another partner in crime,as if late, Kristen. She is suppose to be the group’s marketing person, because being on a national TV show with every possible social media to advertise is just not enough for this breed of stupid. But instead of her helping the group, her and Aaron plot ways to shut down the computer, secret pass codes, so no one else can see what their doing, and deleted emails to the others that are trying to make money.
But in Aaron’s and Kristen’s world, no one can make money, but them. Especially if your Name is Nikki and you happened to have voted for Aaron to go home because he’s starving everyone. His ego just won’t allow her to stay in Utopia. I could go on for hours the stuff these three have pulled off in Utopia, but why? You’d never going to know about it if you just watch the show. For some reason, “creative choices” or some crap, that an Executive Producer came up with when asked about why they won’t tell the story of Utopia.
Instead, we get made up governments that no one follows, made up skits that no one cares about, and made up showmances that are nauseating. The cover-up has gotten so bad it’s carried over to the feeds now with muting so bad you can’t even get a complete sentence at times. In fairness to the EP, he did have a chat with Fox had this has gotten a little better, unless it’s Mike, Aaron or Kristen. As soon as they get to scheming it goes straight to mute or a feed change. The feeders have complained over and over why are you covering for them. It’s so bad, you have guests of Utopia trying to get secret messages to the ones that are being wronged.
I will never for the life of me, understand why Executive Producers think they know better what the audience wants. You have a built in test group with the feeders, who are your hard-core fans that pay to watch 24-7 and watch the show. They are telling you what they want! Expose the crooks!! Put them on trial!! Let the hard workers in Utopia be rewarded for trying to build something up, instead of covering up the corruption and painting those characters as something they are totally not! We are so tired of producers trying to give us fake showmances and wanna-be fame whores trying to get discovered. There is so much going on in Utopia that is 100 times more interesting than any of that fairy tale crap that they are mass producing and shoving down our throats.
It’s a shame. This was an awesome idea. It could have been bigger than Big Brother. IF they hadn’t try to make it just that…without the money at the end.
I wish someone over there at Fox would or could see that. Now, in all their wisdom are going to give us a fake wedding paid for by production, but this is Utopia! Where stuff for the Utes magically appears, a computer to order anything they need, and a spur of the moment wedding that’s been talked about since week one…but it really is just happening…wink wink.
cyninoregon
October 5, 2014 @ 7:02 am
WOW! You make it sound fascinating! Too bad it must have taken a couple of months for that to happen or they bleeped it out—repeatedly people came to the BBUS or other podcast chats, etc, complaining that Utopia had worse censorship than BBUS ever even thought about—and every time I turned on the feeds (and I paid the extra) nothing at all was happening but skinny-dipping, or 2 people talking in the barn…never knew about what really… If they stole quickly enough perhaps, before their version of “Skippy” the censor with the trigger-happy finger on the button could click…?
Seriously, you make very good points. I would have loved the real story of what was happening–it should have aired according to what the show was going to be about (if this were a new society, let’s face it–those 2 or 3 people would have been tried in public and hung in the town square at high noon, unless their friend could break them out in the middle of the night!)
I wish we could be sure they read what you wrote. From my experience, executives must pay $100,000 for a fancy bound report with graphs telling them something for them to believe it. So sad they ruined a good show…wonder if who did it was on the take like those he’s covering for…funny that they are sensitive about white collar thieves…;) That would have been a great story!
FireMan
October 10, 2014 @ 4:00 am
Mike is really Doc Holliday. A guy that would shuffle from the bottom of the deck to get one over.
Vicki
October 5, 2014 @ 6:20 am
I have to say – I will be glad to see it end for one reason: At least we will know the farm animals will be safe and not malnourished or mistreated as they are now.
Vicki
October 5, 2014 @ 6:19 am
Fox should have studied the concept PBS had with “Pioneer House”. Very interesting characters/families. True to life with people coming in to teach them the exact way to make it work as the original pioneers had. These people on Utopia came in thinking they knew it all from the get go. Few of them knew anything at all except that they wanted to be on TV and they wanted the weekly pay offered. Net gain = failure.
cyninoregon
October 5, 2014 @ 6:17 am
i AGREE…Those people just weren’t anyone I could relate to–peeling off their clothes to skinny dip the first or 2d day in? That willingness was what they were cast for. I’d have preferred interesting people–then as things happen organically, it’s fascinating. I never knew when the show was on either…except Friday nights, which is already full with Bill Maher, Ancient Aliens, and The Amazing Race. Why not Saturday–there’s nothing on unless the movie channels all try to compete, maybe once a year? They also should have waited until after the BBUS and CBBUK finales. I waited and now hesitate because everyone talks of cancellation and I fell behind…
Ann Martin
October 5, 2014 @ 5:51 am
The reason is failing is because it’s fake. They got by with it the first couple of shows, pretty much
Canon
October 5, 2014 @ 4:52 am
Agreed. Casting was their downfall. I was so excited to watch this unique opportunity play out, but these people have zero interest in the actual concept and are just taking a paid vacation and furthering their careers. If they’d gotten actual intelligent, motivated, eco-conscious people, it may have had a shot. The egos and backstabbing killed this show very quickly. Sad. Had high hopes for it.
Chris
October 5, 2014 @ 4:52 am
Too many fake, wanna be actors, selfish 20 somethings. Why not just cast REAL people instead of people that have acted or been on a reality show before?? Furthermore, you put in such shallow young people. They care about themselves and not the group as a whole. And too much emphasis on making money. That may have worked on Dutch Utopia, but it seems Americans want to see less dramatic laziness vs productive community and cooperation. Yes, we still want drama, but not bullying and selfishness.
Aerin_S
September 24, 2014 @ 5:16 pm
The show was cast to ensure failure. If Fox had been serious about the premise, it would have cast sane people with actual skills and brains. Instead, Fox bet on viewers’ morbid fascination with a trainwreck.
Tiptronic1881
September 24, 2014 @ 12:16 pm
I was scheduled to be on the show as a cast member and I told the producers the ratings sucked cause people wanted to see a Utopia not a circus.
Chris
October 5, 2014 @ 4:54 am
I really hope they heard you. For once it seems most Americans want less drama and more community and cooperation.
FireMan
September 22, 2014 @ 2:12 am
It’s doomed. Too many characters that are not a bit interesting. The bisexual woman and the two in a showmance are pure dead weight. The hippie gardener is a terrible gardener. I have to laugh. If Fox wanted an interesting show they would have opened more of Sable Ranch property, like the pasture land right next to their set for real farming and animal husbandry. This contrived confined set is unbelievable, it can’t be sold.
Finally I cannot imagine the drama of a single mother bringing a baby into this arena of sin and alcohol abuse. Poor kid.
Come on Fox, really?
Tiptronic1881
September 24, 2014 @ 12:17 pm
I thought she was making crop circles!
writelikeamutha
September 21, 2014 @ 4:40 pm
Boo. I enjoy the show. Big Brother is better but Im not quite sure why. It seems more polished, maybe.
cyninoregon
October 5, 2014 @ 6:50 am
We’ve had such a great variety of BB shows this year! January started with Celebrity BBUK, all old show biz folks and hot young reality tv…then BBUK Civilian, bullying and a phony Christian whose really a topless model, and a whole cast of others, then BBUS which was much more watchable than recent years, and had Derrick strategizing better than anyone in years, then another Celeb BBUK, with castmates from all over the spectrum–fascinating people and combinations, and now BBAU that’s so good I am excited every second it’s on, and cannot wait until the next morning (3:40am here!!) for the next installment!
Utopia needed a cast of interesting and intelligent people–not clones of one another, not cast to drop their clothes on command…they had a few, like the mom to be and the preacher, even the 19 year old vet asst, but they needed strong take charge types who knew what to do to run a farm, a kitchen for a community, and a town.
Which made me wonder from day one, why did they not have a row of homes where the castmates picked partners (or 2 or 3) to live with? I thought we’d see households form which would gossip about, befriend and compete with other households! That’s where the drama of the real world originates! One person would break up another home… One household would be financially successful and hire another couple whose business crashed… Somebody would have to be a cleaning service if they got hungry enough…
This set-up made no sense to me. Were they sleeping in a barn on the floor? All that money to build a pond and cameras everywhere but no houses? It was nothing like a new settlement…money came from nowhere, yet they were trying to grow things IN THE FALL–in So Calif, we planted in early spring–fall crops are very specific. They needed a big greenhouse…someone who knew houseplants and another who knew pumpkins, fruit, etc….could have opened a plantshop, a store by the road? Sold seasonal plants, decorations…beverages, muffins, pie….some could work sales, some grow things, some make food, or decor for Halloween (a haunted house, hayride, witches and ghosts), Thanksgiving, Christmas (a Santas workshop with reindeer?), Hannukah… Fans would go there, wanna-be actors try to get air time LOL… But it would be a business that could go on talk shows, local news to promote viewing and sales. Even open a kiosk in a mall or 2…
Everyone could have a real job just like in the real world. But laying around like what I saw was silly. Hollywood reality.