Sci-Fi Storm

NBC’s comic-inspired super hero story The Cape, which stars David Lyons, saw record low ratings Monday with a 1.5/4 rating, down 6% from the previous week and from the 5.0/8 achieved during the premiere. With that, NBC announced late yesterday that they are cutting the episode order from the planned 13 episodes to 10. Given they are just finishing up the 10th episode, this pulls the plug on the production and, unless there is an amazing resurgence, the show overall.

Today is pick up day, with ABC announcing announcing a full season order (9 additional episodes) of The Event, and NBC following through as well with steady Chuck (11 additional episodes, for a total of 24).

But ABC also is apparently cutting back on V, which has already had a delayed return until January 4th, dropping the original 13-episode order down to 10. It could be just to fit within the programming window available, but we’ll see what happens when we get closer to airing.

Heroes creator Tim Kring, while taking a polite swipe at NBC for canceling his program watched by “45 million TV viewers around the world” each week, hinted at plans to keep the Heroes universe alive in some form, perhaps in the alternate media forms where it has helped gather its following. Read on for his complete statement.
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Just in: as expected, Chuck and V have been renewed, with the expectation of 13-week orders each for now. Flash Forward, however, appears to be not so lucky.

Update: Heroes has also been canceled, although there may be some sort of conclusion later on.

As a follow up to a previous story on David Tennant’s legal comedy pilot for NBC, Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, the show has been shelved for now. There was hope that it would be among the Jay Leno Show slot winners, but the sets have been dismantled and placed in “fold-and-hold” status. There is still hope it could find a slot in the Fall.