Flashpoint Ratings Febraury 27th, 2009

Hi Moonies: We're going to hold off on our summaries of the episodes until further notice. They will be done, just when is hard to say, we are doing a little restructuring behind the scenes. Nonetheless, we will keep you posted on the ratings since Flashpoint is in a bit of a bind on both sides of the border!

First off - it was announced last week that CTV , Flashpoint's parent network in Canada and initial supporter, is projecting a loss of 100 million CAD in "conventional television" due to the worldwide economic crisis, along with changes in television and how the internet has influenced media content. CTV has also written off 1.7 billion CAD in television operations from the last quarter. The network also suspended Canadian Idol just for 2009. We are worried that Flashpoint may have to pull in successful numbers consistently if the show were to be considered for a third season - it will need to prove it will be a good investment. And the ratings in Canada have been declining slowly. On the 13th of February, when the last episode of Season 1 Between Heartbeats aired, the show had 1.292 million viewers - a significant cry from the 1.7 million viewer peak two episodes earlier. So Canadian Moonies - please try to watch this show on Friday night (who wants to go out in the cold anyway?) and encourage anyone else you know to give this show a try!

Now, onto last week's episode, Business as Usual. Canadian ratings won't be posted for a few more days, however the US ratings were published just hours after the show aired. Flashpoint kinda won and didn't win it's timeslot. It had more viewers than Joss Whedon's Dollhouse with 9.17 million viewers (to 4.13 million) however, Dollhouse scored a 2.0/7.0 score with the 18-49 demographic, and Flashpoint was kept away from the top only scoring 1.9/7.0. As far as the shows went, Flashpoint came back with a bang with a story about how the current economic crisis and corporate greed affects everyone, however I thought the scenes with the new character, Donna Sabine (at least we think that's her last name) were a little rushed. Maybe the vagueness of her persona will be clarified as the show goes on, and it was there to add to the mystery of her psychological problems which were hinted at. I really liked the mock stock exchange they had built in MaRS though, and it was nice to see Amy Jo Johnson, even if it was only for a few minutes (she will be back, right?). Dollhouse on the other hand, stuck to one plot for the entire episode's duration, however at times it seemed to drag on and on. I didn't quite believe Eliza Dushku's singing was as great as the show made it out to be, or the Diva's behaviour seemed overdone at times. I also thought some elements for the plot for this episode was drawn from an episode of Eliza's other show Tru Calling, many years ago. I also don't think Friday night is necessarily the greatest night for both of these shows. The good news is that these two shows are the top two in the timeslot, and it will be interesting to see in the coming weeks how this plays out.