The two hour part one of "Alice" on Syfy on Sunday night from 9p-11p averaged 2.454 million. Clearly nowhere near the the re-imagined "Oz" miniseries it put on a while back.
It was a case where Bill and I made slightly different predictions about "Alice" and yet were both right. Bill had remarked (I'll try to phrase this generously) that he had seen an awful lot of Internet-PR out of Syfy for a show he didn't think very many people would watch. I told him it wouldn't do "Oz"-like numbers, but that it would do OK by Syfy standards.
The truth is, I'm guessing Syfy hoped for a bit more, but it was Syfy's most-watched programming of the week, topping "Ghost Hunters'" 2.436 million (barely, but still), "Ghost Hunters Academy" (1.635 million) a repeat of "National Treasure" (1.441 million) and "Stargate Universe" (1.34 million -- a series low against the "Monk" finale -- for those wondering how the encore did at 11pm, it averaged .748 million).
Boy was this terrible. Truly truly terrible.
It just barely topped Ghost Hunters? Wow.I thought sure it would do somewhere in the 4-5 million range, although it didn’t seem very family friendly or charming from the ads and what little I caught. They had to have been hoping for better although I’m sure they’ll spin it and December will end up being the best December in the networks history. Syfy excels at making lemonade from lemons.
Robert, you’re referring to Tin Man from 2007, right? Or was there another one called Oz?
Tin Man debuted with 6.3 million for Syfy, so this is probably a disappointment.
I was referring to “Tin Man,” based on how Syfy had been handling their PR (and not just recently, but going back months), I’m SURE they didn’t expect Alice to do anywhere near those numbers. But they probably hoped (just a guess) that it cracked 3 million.
Yeah, “Alice” was just bad. It was SyFy’s usual Saturday night fare, only heavily promoted. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t use ketchup as synthetic blood when chopping off heads and limbs (also usual SyFy Saturday night fare).
So how did Sanctuary do? I’m a fan (simply because I like Amanda Tapping and think it’s an innovative show) but recognize its numbers are lower than that of SGU.
@Outlander
(from Travis Yanan)
Sanctuary
- 1.328 million viewers
- 0.9/2 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49
I guess SyFy wanted to “Imagine Greater” for Alice.
Robert–
I tend to agree that the marketing effort for “Alice” just didn’t feel like it was at the same level as “Tin Man”.
Was there a Syfy miniseries last year? If so, I do not remember it.
It’s a crap mini-series. I almost turned it off 20 minutes in but stuck it out in hopes it would get better. The script must have been written by a 10-year-old and Alice herself is downright ugly. That said, I’m going to watch part II and hope for the best.
I think SyFy needs an anchor. A show that everyone watches that allows them to promote their other shows and to keep their station on everyone’s radar. Warehouse 13 did a great job of that during its run and I think SyFy planned on SGU filling the same role during this period. But SGU’s mild ratings haven’t managed to pull it off.
I’m just basing this on my own experience. When the original programming isn’t there I essentially don’t watch USA or TNT and I think a lot of people are that way with Cable channels. So if they aren’t watching SyFy and they aren’t one of the handful of people who hasn’t learned how to block out web banner ads than they’d have no idea Alice even existed.
(Lucky them, it truly was bad)
the ads were so annoying for that thing. They played non-stop on Funimation.com for a few days before the broadcast. It made me want to claw out my eyes and ears and eath them.
I actually liked it. It was very different and not as good as Tin Man, but still entertaining. I really loved both Jack and Hatter. Alice was sadly miscast…For SyFy I thought this did pretty well. I wasn’t expecting it to do as well as Tin Man, but Tin Man would definitely appeal to a larger audience IMO and is also superior. And what’s the normal ratings for Sanctuary? I love that show, but am wondering if the ratings have gone down since they replaced Ashley with that awful actress. What’s her name? Kate?
Knight was channel-changing irritating, Hatter knew way too much Earth slang, thought Alice was gonna be karate kicking but didn’t do much. Was embarrassed for Kathy and Colm. Pacing was either keystone cops or paint dry. Nice to see them keep the tradition
“when filming in Vanouver expect a deserted forest.” Dialogue was cringe inducing and even more so in the last 30 minutes, which takes place in a…you guessed it.
I think this is their tired formula that gets them into trouble.
You can’t appreciate Alice; we know her for moments as a karate instructor and she’s in la-la-land. We don’t get time to KNOW the character before we’re supposed to be fixated on her plight.
I’m not a long-time fan of the original “Alice in Wonderland”, but I doubt this matches any of that.
The demand for instant action, and the curiously-executed-but-not-imaginative way they do things is same-old, same-old. Like so many low-talent designers for the “SyFy” network (who forgot science fiction a long, long, LONG time ago!) it threw up things that couldn’t be. Kinda like, “Oh, look- that’s me over there, walking with the Pope!” and neither saying anything about it, nor explaining it as normal, as a requirement of the plot.
At one point I saw a tree, 90-feet high and thriving, supported only by topsoil, with all of it’s roots exposed to air. No concern for where the plant will get it’s nutrition; forget the mechanics of them. This isn’t sci-fi; it’s sloppy, low-talent sci-fi.
The whole “town” is situated in a place where order and development once took place; buildings aren’t boxes, they have fine mouldings and shapings and things; the kind of thing that only happens in an ordered society….like…with a concept of a monetary system. It made the scene look foolish and contrived. Just not well-contrived.
As to the knight, though; Matt Frewer did a GREAT job of an ancient, blowhard knight! He was fun, and an actual bright-spot in the thing. I almost expected him to insert “C-C-Catch the wave!”
I have to say it out loud: this ain’t Science Fiction. Good sci-fi isn’t done this way. And science fantasy isn’t either. But for a cable outlet that wasted years playing such science-oriented titles like “Shark”, “Ant”, “Darkness”, “Breach” and other horrible, one-named horror shows, it’s clear they’ve lost it.
Which is why my watching Alice at all was a miracle. There’s just no reason to watch “SyFy” anymore, is there?
I watched 30 minutes and just switched the channel. It’s annoying that Syfy doesn’t know how to make good science fiction/fantasy anymore. Dune and Children of Dune were not perfect (how could they be considering the source material) but they were very watchable. EarthSea, again not a perfect adaptation of Ursula Le Guin’s material, but still good TV. The BSG miniseries was probably some the best work the network has ever done. It’s a shame the network is doing everything it can to divest itself of anything resembling sci-fi or fantasy.
I watched both Tin Man and Alice. I liked Alice but Tin Man was much much better. I think that the ending was better, Tin Man’s ending was too abrupt, it needed more time to finish the story. I keep hoping that SyFy will make it into a series and have Neal McDonough and Alan Cumming reprise their roles! Their characters were the best.
I made it through all four hours but i wasn’t impressed. I only watched for Andrew Lee Potts who in 5 years time will probably be a pretty successful actor in the US. Love him in Primeval and he was great as Hatter but I don’t think we’ve seen all he is capable of. Not sure if he would do great in straight comedy but he is always great as comic relief in drama/suspense situations.
Probably the #1 reason why it wasn’t as successful as “Tin Man”… Zooey Deschanel. I didn’t hate Caterina Scorsone but comparing her to Deschanel (who has become the fanboy #1 or #2 fantasy girl between Tin Man and now…I think many would still take Kristen Bell) is sort of like going from prime rib to…I don’t know…weird sister of prime rib.
I hope to god at least one person gets that prime rib reference.
GOB.