Ratings: ‘Nikita’ series finale fails to pack punch

After four seasons of being constantly on the bubble as one of the lowest-rated shows on broadcast television, it’s almost appropriate in a rather sad way that “Nikita” closes out its run on The CW in much of the same way as it started: With numbers that really fail to impress much of anyone.

This last episode of the series on Friday night, a time in which many are still away for the holidays, ended up pulling a 0.2 in the 18-49 demographic along with just over 800,000 viewers. The show’s fans cannot even blame it on such factors as competition, since there really was none at all. It also drew the same rating as a repeat episode of “The Carrie Diaries,” though it did pull in more total viewers.

In the end, though, it really seems silly to spend too much time being bummed that a show’s last episode  is getting lower ratings than some people were hoping to see. Really, you have to be happy that the network kept it around in the first place long enough to give it a proper ending. Following season 2 especially, there was little reason to think that it had a genuine shot of coming back. But, CW head Mark Pedowitz has made a concentrated effort for the most part to ensure that the majority of the shows put on the air have a legitimate chance of ending in a way that will satisfy fans. So long as you make it to around 40 or so episodes, you start getting to the point where you really cannot cancel something outright without there being a huge uproar from viewers about it. “Nikita” will live on forever on DVD, though with the way in which the show ended, we have a very hard time seeing it having some sort of movie or special down the road.