22-24 episode 4th season. Final episode count will be announced later.

Oh hey it's Marlo Stanfield!

Good start to the new season. Looks like it's going back to a case of the week format (POI of the week) with the Samaritan storyline as a backdrop.

Detective John Riley in Narcotics.

Shaw working in retail

Finch as a Professor.

Thought the case of the week was fun. at Elias sending one of his men to intervene (in that truck) with the drug dealers.

at John getting promoted to the 8th and being partnered with Fusco. I laughed at that. Hasn't John passed through the 8th before when he had dealings with Carter? Wouldn't some people recognize him? Okay, I'm over-thinking. POI has gone into the absurd on many occasions.

Undercover narcotics officer provides blank coverage unless someone say him that time they blowup the electrical system.

Marshall Marshall Mann!

Too bad his role was barely 1 scene.

Season should be interesting with John playing fake cop.

This episode seems almost like a partial reboot of the show.

Ratings don't look as good, compared to last year.


Nielsen ratings for season 4 episode 1 are:

- 18-49 demographic rating is 1.7
- Live+SD viewer numbers is 10.58 million.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...d-down/306586/



In contrast, the Nielsen ratings for season 3 episode 1 (from last year) are:

- 18-49 demographic rating is 2.3
- Live+SD viewer numbers is 12.44 million.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...d-down/204739/

I wouldn't worry about it. This show isn't getting canceled anytime soon. Chicago Fire won the timeslot because it was a resolution to a big cliffhanger episode.

In principle it can dumped onto Friday nights if the ratings aren't so hot, but also didn't fall off a cliff.

Hawaii Five-0 season 4 was getting around 9 million viewers on Fridays, and was renewed for a season 5.

For perspective, one can examine past precedents of previous CBS shows.


CSI Miami and NY were attracting around 9-10 million viewers in their final few seasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...010.E2.80.9311
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...011.E2.80.9312


Numb3rs and The Mentalist were attracting around 8-9 million viewers in their final (or next-to-final) few seasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...008.E2.80.9309
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of....E2.80.9314.29


In the end, hopefully Person of Interest will make it to a season 5. Even if it's a shortened season dumped onto a Friday or Sunday evening time slot.

Another thing to keep in mind is that "Person of Interest" is produced by Warner, and not CBS (or Paramount for that matter).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/companycredits

The show also already has an off-network syndication deal in place with WGN paying around $1.1-1.5 million per episode.

http://deadline.com/2013/10/wgn-amer...terest-605358/



If there's further erosion in the ratings, CBS might not be as inclined to renew the show for further seasons after the magic number of 100 episodes is reached (for off-network syndication).

Something which hasn't been mentioned much, is how much of season 4 will be serialized. If season 4 turns out to be even more serialized than season 3, it may possibly be harder to attract new and/or casual viewers to the show.

If the ratings don't significantly erode away over season 4, my guess is that CBS might very well continue the show until the actors' contracts are up. What happens after a hypothetical season 5 or 6, when the actors' contracts expire and are up for renewal, is anybody's guess at this point.

Renewing a casts' contracts seems to only really be done for shows that become huge hits, such as NCIS, Criminal Minds, CSI, Law & Order SVU, etc ... (ie. Enough advertising revenue coming in to pay for the long term casts' higher salaries, etc ...).


In the case of "Person of Interest", it's not easy to find reliable information on the casts' contracts. The only one I've been able to find is Sarah Shahi (allegedly) signing a 4-year contract.

http://www.tv.com/shows/person-of-in...-137442076362/

Not easy to find info on what contracts Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson signed up for, back when the show started.


To get an idea what the length of similar contracts are for similar tv acting roles, one can examine recent precedents. For example:

- AJ Cook's contract was not renewed after season 5 of Criminal Minds. (Though she was brought back in later seasons).

http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/06/14/cr...rops-a-j-cook/

- Thomas Gibson's contract was renewed after season 6 of Criminal Minds.

http://deadline.com/2011/06/hell-be-...-minds-141820/

- Alex O'Loughlin appears to be on a 5 or 6 year contract for the lead role in Hawaii Five-0.

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/alex-oloug...183100990.html

- Simon Baker appears to have been on a 6 year contract for the lead role in The Mentalist, which he later renegotiated to 7 years and other "goodies".

http://deadline.com/2010/12/mentalis...evision-92843/
http://collider.com/simon-baker-marg...ist-interview/


Perhaps it wouldn't be too surprising if Emerson and Caviezel both have similar 5 or 6 year contracts for their lead roles in "Person of Interest". That is, unless they negotiated shorter contracts before the show started in 2011. (ie. Taraji Henson appears to have been on a 2 or 3 year contract for the Carter role, or CBS/Warner let her get out of her contract earlier).

So if Caviezel and/or Emerson signed shorter contracts than 5 years, then the earliest we will hear about cast contract renewals, would be next summer (2015).

LOVED the start to this new season!! Wow! Looks like they were listening to some of the complaints about last year.

Great premiere. Good to see Elias again. It was funny to see him and his assistant on Mysteries of Laura last week.

seems like someone set up Harold with a new bat cave

yeah, that's my guess.

You can make the case that a lot of people there before were HR and aren't there anymore.

Great to hear a Ten Years After song at the end.

Emerson was a fairly hot property at the time, he very likely got a five-year contract. They would have likely given Caviezel the same length. Stars want shorter contracts, if the show lasts that long it is a hit and the actor can demand big money.

I'm not that worried about ratings for Person of Interest. I don't think it is particularly suited to Tuesdays and it's a big seller on home video.