kevin75

this might not be good.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20051019/en_tv_eo/17607

Mum's the Word on "Alias"
By Joal Ryan 2 hours, 24 minutes ago

When ABC announced it was moving Alias to Thursdays, it looked like curtains for Sydney Bristow. One month into the season, it looks like curtains for Sydney Bristow.

As the anchor of ABC's notoriously must-not-see night, the five-season-old spy adventure sank to 70th place (7.2 million) for the TV week ended Sunday, per Nielsen Media Research.

Even worse, in its first half-hour, the show ran behind NBC's world-famous Joey (68th place, 7.4 million) among coveted 18-to-49-year-old viewers.

And in the most ominous sign yet--if press releases can be considered signs--Alias was programa non grata in ABC's weekly ratings recap released Tuesday.

The network that found something nice to say about Supernanny (71st place, 7 million) couldn't bring itself to spin mother-to-be Sydney. In this instance, silence most likely is deadly.

Other ABC shows rating unmentionable status: Alias' Thursday partners in obscurity, Night Stalker (83rd place, 5.1 million) and Primetime (86th place, 4.5 million), not to mention every Friday series, save for the vaunted Supernanny. The formerly sturdy According to Jim (60th place, 7.8 million) was only noted in passing, as in "Rodney [57th place, 8 million] built on its According to Jim lead-in."

So far, ABC has yet to cancel or renew any series. But when Commander in Chief (ninth place, 16.2 million) gets three paragraphs' worth of glowing press-release ink, Freddie (45th place, 9.4 million) gets two, and Alias gets none, SD-6 intelligence is not required to determine which shows are bound for glory.

Or not.

resinrats

Alias has had bad ratings for the past few seasons. I'm surprised its lasted this long.

MrX

I think when they moved it from its post-Lost spot it was pretty much a given this year was it.

Rogue588

See what happens when you promenently display a Red Sox hat on screen?

They're cursed, I tell ya..

Jadzia

I still don't see why they air this BEFORE Lost, instead of the two comedies. I understand they wanted Lost as a lead-in to Invasion, but starting the night with the two sitcoms seems kind of odd. You might get some Lost fans who are turning on the channel early getting into Alias.

Rogue588

Pehaps they think that since Alias has been a BLOCKBUSTER ratings smash since its premiere, it would anchor any show that followed it...?

I mean, it wouldn't make much sense to keep two similarly shows together, would it? It's not like fans of Alias watch Lost [and vice versa].

Show of hands all the thousands of Freddie fans that are fans of Lost? See?

DeadLamb

part of me really likes the idea of the 68th show and 70th show of the week battling it out for 67th place on the same night..

just a funny mental picture of the cast going "We can do it, we can get to 67th place!"

movieking

I've watched Alias from the start, but I haven't seen any of the episodes so far this season. Too many conflicts. With Vartan gone, a lot of loyal fans will probably leave as well.

Chew

Hopefully if the end is near, there's enough notice to end it properly.

areacode212

I think everyone kind of knows that this is the last season anyway. Too bad, after last week's pretty good episode, I was hoping they could pull a Practice/Boston Legal, and perhaps have had ratings stay high enough to produce a spin-off with Rachel Nichols as a new spy (and Amy Acker as her arch-nemesis).

At least, I hope they don't cancel it mid-season.

dadaluholla

I've been a big alias fan since the beginning. now I find myself with the last 3 episodes just sitting on the Tivo. I just have no desire to watch it anymore. I wouldn't care if it was cancelled. .

rfduncan

Well I dunno why they would cancel it. They have to air SOMETHING in that timeslot. You'd think JJ would direct more attention back to his original show instead of completely throwing all his focus to LOST. This does not bode well for the treatment LOST can expect when he tires of it and moves onto another project.

I hope it gets to run its full season and end properly. I wanna see more Sark and definitely more McKenas Cole (Quentin Tarantino) before things shut down!

Geofferson

I imagine the ABC execs moved Alias to Thursdays as a lead-in for Night Stalker. Things obviously have not worked out as planned though.

mdc3000

Watch them!!! Halfway through last season, I ditched Alias (well, in favour of waiting for dvd...it just wasn't worth the weekly effort) but this season, I'm back into it, and IMO, the show now has fresh legs. The new storyline with Rachel Nichols is great (at least watch last weeks ep!!!!!!) and I think if ABC were to really promote this new angle (and Amy Acker doesn't hurt) then maybe they could get some new viewers...

Of course, they lost a lot of viewers with Vaughn, viewers who hold a grudge and have now abandoned the show (pretty lame IMO). I think if Alias was the Lost lead in, ABC would see a serious jump in ratings.

MATT

prayformojo

Ratings alone may not be enough to kill a show in this day and age. With DVD sales, other potential video distribution on the horizon (iTunes video is just the tip of the iceberg) and the fact that the show just went into syndication, I would be surprised if the season was not completed. ABC can not expect Alias to perform well in its new time slot, but I am surprised that the show is failing so magnificently. I think that ABC really dropped the ball by not having the Season 4 DVD set out before the show premiered. I love Alias, but missed the entire last season, so I have to wait until next week to finally get the DVDs and catch up. I think having the DVDs out in August would have helped a lot. Also, Alias is supposed to go on hiatus during the winter at some point for Garner to have her baby, so it could easily see a time change or not come back from the hiatus. Finally, I don't buy the excuse that a pregnant Sydney keeps male viewers away; I have to say I am intrigued by a pregnant super-spy not to mention what could be done with this development in the way of the mythology.

Jadzia

Also, with Lost such a huge hit, I would think ABC might feel indebted to keep Alias around to keep JJ happy. (If he even still cares at this point).

DRG

They had a golden timeslot last year, and the show actually pulled in decent ratings after Lost for awhile. The problem was that the early part of season 4 was so completely awful that the new mainstream audiences that were sticking around after Lost started thinking, "Wow, this show sucks" and stopped tuning in.

The sad thing about this is that, for all the talk about the Thursday slot being a "death slot", it's really not that bad anymore. Sure, Survivor gets great ratings. But in the 10.0 to 11.0 range usually, which isn't a completely dominating force like CSI or Desperate Housewives. Joey is doing mediocre ratings this year. The O.C. does okay but minor numbers. Smallville and Everybody Hates Chris are doing great for "netlet" shows, but still they are both doing less than a 4.0 apiece. If ER and Without a Trace can both pull in 11.0+ numbers in the 10 pm slot, there's no reason two shows couldn't be successful at 8.

B.A.

I still like the show quite a bit, I'm just annoyed w/ it's constant time-slot changes and the fact that they have completely ignored/forgotten a couple of storylines (the end of season 3).

Morf

Big spoiler about a returning character:

http://comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=11616

Quote from above site:

Jadzia

All I wanna know is where is Mr. Sark? I want them to bring him back.

riley_dude

Booo. Bringing back characters that are gone is a lazy way of undoing plots they should not have done in the first place. That's why they decided not to bring Lauren back.

ABC,putting it on Thursdays has basically put the stake in the show. Alias was never a big ratings winner when it was good. Not it is a shadow of it's former self.

bboisvert

I'm honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did... as many have mentioned, it has NEVER gotten decent ratings. Even during the first two (fantastic) seasons, it usually came in 3rd or 4th place on Sunday nights.

And -- again, as many have mentioned -- I'm not going to be sorry to see it go. It has been sputtering for several years now.

QuikSilver

I knew this was going to happen. It was ABC's fault for moving the show to Thursday.

Daniel-A

Would they Axe it midseason? That'd be a big blow for a multiseason show.

movieking