That’s what the internet is for!

I did read that Marc Singer has a cameo and I hope they do advertise that as I would watch that episode live.

Overall I predict that this show will decline over the year but I am saying that based only on watching the pilot.

As big as Modern Warfare 2 is in the game industry, its highly unlikely it has an outsized effect on TV ratings (vs. the squinty jillion other things happening that same day).

To the people that think there is some seedy underlying attempt to push a political agenda or brain wash people with a certain ideology, GET A LIFE and stop reading into things so much.

The first episode had a somewhat accelerated reveal, but the second episode slowed things down quite a bit into a more normally paced narrative. IMHO, I think the writers chose the quick reveal of the first episode because they want to tackle a different side of the story instead of rehashing the original V with the more drawn out reveal. Now we get to delve more into the build up of the resistance and how that plays out in terms of human and V relationships and who will defect from both sides of the fence.

This is not the original V and as with any good remake of something that was popular in its version 1.0 iteration, you don’t copy the original…you build on it. However, I can see how some people who loved the original V might be disappointed with the quick reveal and might have hoped that it would be closer to the original. Those people and the people who don’t generally go for sci-fi, and only tuned in to episode 1 because of the hype, are probably what accounted for most of the episode 2 drop off.

To the 20 something newcomers, like Peter’s group above, that never heard of the original, check out the original series and then come back to this new series with an open perspective.

The comparisons to Bionic Woman…seriously? Bionic Woman sucked and that’s why it died. V is so much better that Bionic Woman ever was.

On top of it… and I’m a firm believer in it. Previews ruin connected shows. They give away major plot twists in an attempt to bring viewers back next week. Guess what… if you actually make a really good episode, you don’t need to give away major plot twists for people to come back.

Even ignoring the insulting politics, the fact is the show doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself. Both episodes have been a jumbled mess, and Ep 2 was worse than Ep 1 in that regard. In their desperation to get to the meaty part of the story, they’re unable to tell a story.

The more I look at it, the more the comparisons with Bionic Woman seem unfair. V is definitely worse than Bionic Woman. Bionic Woman made a real effort to set up the show’s mythology, to tell a tight story around a small number of characters, to make each episode tell something resembling a story. It just wasn’t very good, the lead character was awful and everything else was as mushy as an early Dollhouse episode.

V has none of Bionic Woman’s qualities, it’s a sprawling mess and if it wasn’t for the fact most viewers have seen the original and therefore know the general gist (the aliens are bad! They’re going to enslave and kill us all!) I suspect, actually, that 3.7 would probably be a 3.0, as confused and lost viewers switch over to NCIS or So You Think Stars Can Dance or whatever.

ABC would be better off canceling the show right now, and starting afresh (with a full reboot) in a year or so with someone who knows what they’re doing.

They just can’t seem to really score a new hit show can they? This reminds me of the NBC situation back in the beginning of the decade when the only shows they were riding on were “Friends” and “Fraiser” and NBC knew that once they lost those shows their network was going to sink. And Boy did it happen. Now the same thing will happen with ABC once they lose “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” aging shows which are nearing the end of their runs in 2 or 3 more years. What does ABC have once they leave? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. And that’s not a good sign.

I’m sad I was only lurking on this site last spring so I never got to comment on this thread. Just imagine if Bill was doing the index back in ’87. The “Nothing in Common” adaptation would have indexed, like, gosh, a 1.eleventybillion or something… and he would have been perplexed as to why it was cancelled.

(It aired after “Cheers” for those who have forgotten. And it was really bad. So, I have no reason to doubt Nielsen accuracy in ’87.)

As for “V,” while I couldn’t care less about alien invasion nonsense (even though ABC’s promotional campaign was so good, it nearly hooked me), I hope that show works out for them. They’ve been in desperate need of a Tuesday 8:00 hit for several years now.

Well, only about 30% of scripted shows appear to be safe from cancellation.

I think it’s going to be like Life on Mars where it’s usually fun and has cool visuals but in the end just not enough to keep people watching.

Just so you will know, Republican President Nixon first proposed universal health care in the 1970′s and the Democratic controlled Congress voted it down. I just can not see anything in “V” that was about Obama. The Patriot Act was under President George W. Bush and it is responsible for removing many of our civil rights and Constitutional protections. Obama is yet to really do much of anything one way of the other because it take time to get stuff done.

I defer to your knowledge and access to the numbers, I just noticed that the numbers for JUST the BROADCAST networks seemed to make me think the forgot to turn on the TV group might have affected “Vs” numbers, and I agree if they had the TV on and would have been watching SOMETHING (cable or broadcast networks) then my point certainly was MUTE.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the GOOD job you do on this Site!!

Of course people become emotionally invested in shows….its why they watch them or on the flip side why they don’t watch them. Its easy to sit back and not give a crap about whats on and then entertain yourself with a daily dose of ripping on shows with low ratings and the people that are worried about them. I read and or post at several different sites around the internet that discuss ratings and the people who do this always seem to be the ones that never commit or admit to being a fan of a show. Its just “cancel this”, “why is this still on?”, “The CW should just fold up and quit”, “Chuck fans are idiots”, “Heroes fans are idiots”, “ha ha your show is DOA”, and poking fun at people who care enough about their show to find out if it will continue to be on every week.

Ill continue to use the “Nielsens are an outdated system” as a blanket argument for the overall trend of television in the past few years. The TV landscape is so much different than the 1980′s when there were 3 big networks with very little options on cable and successful shows were expected to pull in 30 million viewers to stay on the air.

Look no further than this to see what I mean…http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/05/31/we-look-back-at-the-top-tv-shows-of-1987/3984

I noticed the higher (extra) viewer total for the night (all viewers all network shows)appear to have watched the pilot of “V”. This week the total viewers number was down about the amount of “V” second episode loss. This makes me think these folks tuned in to watch “V” and were not necessarily viewers of Tuesday night shows so “V” was down and the total viewers were down.

Several folks have posted here that they FORGOT to turn on the TV and watch “V” making me think “Vs” viewers were not regular viewers. My DVRs do not forget but everyone does not have DVRs.

Maybe next week more will REMEMBER and turn on the TV on Tuesday night next week? Just a thought.

Here’s the thing that bothers me alittle.
Procedurals like NCIS tend to be fairly consistent, i’m guessing the same people watch week after, week.
So why is it so hard for others to watch serials, consitently.
I know it might seem like it’s hard to catch on, after missing a few episodes.

I agree completely. Its pretty sad that its come to this, but it has. Everyone crys foul over nothing these days.

Curious to see the ratings for next week. Will V continue to decline? Will the increasingly horrible Melrose Place see a tick up?

Blasting my earlier comments for lack of originality does not make it untrue. Just thought I’d point that out. Obviously I struck a nerve with you. Its all good, we can agree to disagree.

However, you are way off base in thinking that, because of its possible criticism of Obama, “V” is insulting to half the population. Not every democrat is so liberal that they’d be insulted by the Obama criticism in “V”. Most democrats, unlike you, are smarter than that.

Perhaps you should get over yourself and realize that you don’t speak for all democrats. I should know, since I am one. There is a difference between liberal and democrat, you know.

Why do you come here if you hate discussions on the numbers?

Chuck

Arghhhh I really hope the numbers don’t fall too much more. I was expecting a drop off from the pilot of course, but this is pretty bad. And the 4 month hiatus isn’t going to help anything, even if the next 2 episodes are amazing. Hopefully they can at least keep above a 3, but I’m not even sure that will happen. It’s really too bad, since I think it has such potential, and the cast is top notch.

I would not necessarily believe ABC regarding the showrunner replacement. This is speculation but I imagine they shut it down and replaced showrunners (twice?) because they wanted to meddle and tinker with the show, not because it was actually considered “bad” by anyone other than network execs, and not because production was taking too long or going over budget. (Again that’s speculation and I’d be curious to know otherwise, if anyone can cite sources.)

I didn’t think last night’s episode was bad. The characters and dialogue could’ve been more fleshed-out and sharper but the pace was good and there was a powerful sense of paranoia and suspense. I like the concept that anybody might be a visitor in disguise. It’s not nearly as good as the original 80s miniseries though.

ABC has probably made a major blunder here. If they had left well enough alone and allowed production to continue then maybe they would have had 13 episodes ready to go, all in a row, straight through early February just before the Olympics, meaning the ratings would’ve had a better shot at leveling off. And a back nine could’ve been ready by April and May. Instead the execs just had to interfere and act like they know something about writing a TV show. Didn’t they say they shut it down because it was “too hard to follow” or something like that? Sheesh.