What would cancellation look like in ‘Utopia’? We could find out…
The ratings for the second night of Fox’s “Utopia” are in, and we’re not mincing words here when they say that they are far from a perfect world for Fox.
For its second night, the reality series drew a pretty abysmal 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which shows to us a number of things. For one, it shows that the casting was too dramatic, that the production too jolting, and the decision to air the show opposite “Big Brother,” which could have many crossover viewers, was a big mistake. Maybe the concept was flawed for a major network from the get-go. You really cannot blame this on anything else, given there was not any NFL coverage on Tuesday night, and “America’s Got Talent” and “Sons of Anarchy” were not on until a little later in the night.
As for what cancellation would look like in “Utopia,” we’re actually interested to find out. Do they all get whisked away and the place shut down? What would be great reality television to us is seeing the “pioneers” learn that Fox has canceled the show, and they really were people who didn’t get a whole lot out of this experience other than just that. They won’t be getting a whole lot of fame, that’s for sure.
There’s no question to us that “Utopia’s” experiment will not last for a full year anymore; the remaining question is just when Fox decides to pull the plug, and what is going to be an acceptable rating for the series during the fall.
One final question: Does Kevin Reilly get the blame for this? He was at least around for some of the development process before exiting, so he could be the easy fall guy.
What do you think about the show’s immediate decline in the ratings? Share below, and head over here if you want to get some further updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter.
Photo: Fox
Vicki
October 5, 2014 @ 6:30 am
The initial night of the feeds (before the show started) was filled with drunken violence. The violence and animosity continued and considering part of the violence was from a recently-released ex-con, it was a dangerous situation. The whining, agressive behavior was unbearable due to a lot of the Utopians jockeying for camera time as well as a spot as the supervisor of something on the farm. No real skills, with the exception of 1 or 2 people and most thought they were experts because of something they had read on the internet. Some wanted to sleep late and act as if they were at summer camp. The self-proclaimed chef, who also slept in every day, can’t cook, can’t order food, and doesn’t care if his charges are fed or not. None of it makes any sense at all. There is no effort to do anything fruitful for the farm and they don’t seem to care. Why should we care if they don’t?
Tom Patnode
September 27, 2014 @ 1:35 pm
They lost credibility. This is the second show Red has been on. Contractors don’t know how to build, vet knows nothing of animals and the farming expert is nuts. Seems as unreal as it can get.
tetye
September 10, 2014 @ 10:58 pm
look, I don’t work in TV, I don’t read ratings for a living. but to me, the smart move would have been to wait until the week after Big Brother ended. you would still get the BB fans who watch survivor as long as you weren’t dumb enough to put it up against survivor like you were with big brother
really seems like just bad planning. I’d watch it 100 percent if they had less hot heads in there, and if they had simply let it air AFTER big brother was done. its too much, but when we all of a sudden lack Big Brother, well, utopia solves that need. too bad they seemed to totally miss that