Will Heroes Be Axed Next?
The axe-man has been very busy in America this week with new series Eastwick cancelled by ABC while over at Fox they’ve finally put Dollhouse out of its misery and axed it. To be fair in terms of ratings both shows were expected to be axed by their broadcasters but there’s another ratings-challenged series which could be joining the two on the scrap heap – Heroes. So we ask, will Heroes be axed next?
Heroes was expected, by some, to be cancelled at the end of its third season due to struggling ratings but NBC showed some faith in the once popular series and gave it another year. Perhaps they were hoping that the ratings would pick up with a new season and slight creative rejig but as yet that’s yet to happen. Eight episodes of the new season have now aired in America and the ratings for them are hardly anything to write home about.
Heroes returned on 21st September with a ‘two hour event’ Orientation which picked up 6 million and then dropped to 5.7 million for the second half. The following week’s episode Ink saw ratings rise ever so slightly to 5.8 million but they soon dropped off again with Acceptance falling to 5.4 million. Hysterical Blindness saw ratings climb to 5.6 million while Tabula Rosa saw them stay at 5.6 million. Strange Attractors saw the ratings return to 5.8 million while Once Upon A Time in Texas broke the 6 million mark for the first time since the fourth season began. The most recent episode, on Monday 9th November, saw a big drop though with 5.3 million viewers.
The ratings have been up and down like a yoyo and although they rose week-on-week for several episodes they are still nothing like the 14 million viewers who tuned in for Heroes first season. Unless things, i.e ratings, drastically improve for Heroes and it pulls in more than 6 million viewers per episode then its likely the axe will fall. After all ABC pulled the plug on Eastwick when it dropped below 5 million and to be honest some episodes of Heroes hasn’t been that far away from the 5m mark.
