Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

Series Revival: Warner Bros. Animation announced yesterday that a third season of their fan-favorite animated series Young Justice is in the works. That series aired for two seasons on Cartoon Network, attracting adult and younger viewers, but was cancelled before its could resolve the Apokolips storyline it was developing. The cancellation allegedly came in part because it did not attract as many young male viewers and because it was not selling enough toys (you can read more about that at this link). Netflix picked up the first two seasons of the show prompting fans to start up a new petition for that streaming service to produce a third year (egged on by series creators Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman). Warner Bros. has not indicated yet if the third season will run on Netflix or another venue and there is no word on whether the original voice cast will return. But fans can rejoice that their efforts to bring the show back have not gone unnoticed and that a third year of the series is on the way, likely arriving next year.

Ratings Drop: On Sunday, AMC’s The Walking Dead saw another drop in its ratings as it slipped to a 5.7 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 11.7 million total viewers. The drop it saw last week was expected, coming after the over-hyped Season 7 premiere, and it was about even with where it was at the same point last year. But this week it dropped an additional 7% (it improved with its third episode last year) which may suggest that the backlash against the show is taking its toll. To be clear, TWD is not in any sort of ratings trouble at the moment as it remains by far the highest rated scripted show on all of television. But viewers have expressed their displeasure over the show’s recent bouts of excessive violence as well as its attempts to string them along, and that may be reflecting in the ratings now. It will be interesting to see how the show trends in the coming weeks and if it can start to build back its audience or if it will be on a steady decline from hear on out. I don’t expect a cancellation anytime in the near future for the show, but its stratospheric ratings may be a thing of the past.

Ratings Results of Interest: On Sunday, HBO’s Westworld improved to a 0.71 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demo with 1.6 million total viewers and may be building back its audience as the backlash drives viewers away from The Walking Dead. Over on FOX, Son of Zorn slipped to a season low 0.9 rating with 2.1 million total viewers and the network may be hard-pressed to keep that one going if it doesn’t turn its numbers around. On Saturday, BBC America’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency continued to struggle as it could only muster a 0.09 rating with 330k total viewers. That one will have to rely heavily on its Netflix international partnership to keep it alive for a second season. On Friday, MacGyver rebounded from its prior week season low and pulled a 1.1 rating with 7.6 million total viewers which was in line with the other CBS shows for the night. Whether that will be good enough for the network remains to be seen. FOX’s The Exorcist slipped to a season low of a 0.6 rating with 1.8 million total viewers and this show looks to certainly be a one-season-and-done entry. I previously looked at the Monday through Thursday shows from last week at this link.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday October 31st thru Sunday November 6th (metric definitions below):

(Links are to the show pages on this site with season to date ratings results and status updates)

Chart Activity: It does appear that Nielsen has stopped sharing its Weekly Social Net Rating Top 10, so those numbers will not be appearing here unless the company changes its mind on that. And TV by the Numbers did not update their broadcast net Top 25 for the week (they are becoming increasingly more unreliable), so we only have the cable Top 25 which suspiciously are exacting the same rankings for The Walking Dead and American Horror Story as the prior week. Maybe we will have better luck with these stats next week.

Series Chart Curr Wk Rank Prior Wk Rank American Horror Story Cable Top 25 (18-49 Demo) 6 6 The Walking Dead Cable Top 25 (18-49 Demo) 1 1 The Walking Dead Cable Top 25 (Total Viewers) 1 1

Be sure keep an eye out for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week at the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site and Facebook Page. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page and also the latest Cancellation Watch Hit List post. And for more information on where I get these numbers and how I make my Cancellation Alert assessments, check out the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

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Metric Definitions:

Series: (R) indicates a repeat airing

Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted

% Chng: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating (if a new episode aired last week).

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers (age 2+) to tune in to the episode for same day viewing.

StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.

Net Bench (Network Benchmark): For the broadcast networks, this is the net’s season to date average rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat broadcasts. For the cable channels, this is the lowest level at which a show is typically renewed by that network if there are enough genre entries on that channel to provide a decent sample.

Cancellation Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.

Source: ShowBuzzDaily and TV by the Numbers