Why NBC Set Up Constantine for Failure
There's no guarantee that no matter how well put together a show is that it will do well. There's a plethora of reasons a show can fail or get cancelled, even ones fans love. Firefly, Arrested Development, Freeks and Geeks, Futurama, and a plethora of other shows get the boot before it's realized how popular they are. Television moves fast, and if new shows don't get the ratings, they get the boot. It's as simple as that. There doesn't seem to be as much time allotted to let series grow and find their audience.
Look, I know we're starting on the wrong foot. I'm talking about the cancellation of widely-loved shows to put all of what I want to talk about into perspective: a show that is yet to be cancelled, but it certainly looks like it's headed that way. If you missed the title of this piece, then you probably don't know I'm talking about NBC's Constantine. I love this show, and it seems to have found a solid following on social media, with people tweeting out #SaveConstantine, which includes the writers of the show.
In recent news, according to Deadline, NBC didn't order a full season and this first season will be capped at 13 episodes. This doesn't mean the show is cancelled, but it doesn't seem like this series has a lot of hope. Sure, it is still in contention for the show to get picked up for a second season, but with other comic shows in their first season, The Flash and Gotham, both getting full season orders, there's not a lot of hope, at least from me, but maybe I'm a bit of a pessimist.
While the title of this article may make it seem like I completely and utterly blame NBC for how well or not well this show is doing, that's not entirely the case. There's a lot of blame to throw around, but first and foremost, we should really talk about what I'm calling the "Time Slot from Hell." Constantine airs on Friday nights at 10/9C, right after Grimm. While the intent to put Constantine on right after another show with the same type of tone, which audiences may gravitate towards, is a good idea, the show is still on Fridays at 9/10C. Late prime-time on Friday nights: the time where the whole family sits around the television and basks in the warmth of all their favorite shows, right? Nope. Lots of folks like to go out on Fridays, and when people aren't home, they can't watch television.
I can understand why Constantine is on at 10 at night. There's shows that are violent and darker that do well that air at that time like The Strain, Sons of Anarchy, and American Horror Story: Freakshow. While two out of three are series that are well-established, they aren't shows that can be on right in prime-time because of the level of maturity. So putting Constantine on that late leaves me to believe that it is a more mature show. Here's the thing, you could put this on at 8 and it would be fine. It's not a mature show. There's adult elements within the show, but there's nothing that makes this a show that has to be on this late. If you can put dramatic sex-crime investigation shows on during peak viewing hours, Constantine should be fine. Now, forgetting the idea that fall premiere shows get cancelled more than they get renewed, it's just the worst place to air a show. Let's look at some numbers, for other Friday shows, on the other major networks, from Tv By The Numbers.
At the same time as Constantine, according to the ratings from 12/6, ABC's 20/20 had 6.3 million live viewers (1.4 rating). CBS's Blue Bloods, which was a rerun, had 6.61 million live viewers (0.8 rating). Constantine had 3.1 million live viewers (0.8 rating). In total, there were 16 million people watching these networks. Listen, I have no idea how the rating system works. I do understand the total number of people watching though. I can tell you that same time slot, on a Monday night, has 20 million viewers between the three networks and two of the shows in that 10PM time slot have 8 million live viewers. You can do the math from there. That's four million more viewers and those shows are up against Monday Night Football (11.7 million live viewers) and WWE's Monday Night Raw (4 million live viewers), two staples on Monday nights.
Where am I going with that? Well, Friday night viewership isn't there, no matter how great the show is. The regular week or even Sundays are where it's at. The well intentions of placing Constantine on after Grimm is still a slap in the face and shows NBC has little faith in the show, as they're using it for filler before your nightly news.
I don't know much about how live viewing vs streaming works either. Are people watching this show on NBC.com or on Hulu? What about the people, much like me, that have to DVR it each week? What are those numbers like compared to everything else? Hopefully, NBC has a good understanding that the way people watch tv is changing and changing quickly.
Another strange thing that happened with this series, which feels like NBC doesn't have much faith in the show is airing episodes out of order. I don't know how often it happens, but every example I can think of resulted in the show getting cancelled within its first season, right Firefly? According to a few folks here and there, episode #106 "Rage of Caliban" was actually supposed to be the second episode, and it was obvious, even before I learned that piece of information. Airing things out of order doesn't make too much sense, even if the series has a bit more of a villain of the week feeling to it. There is an overarcing story and when things don't air the way they're supposed to, you can tell.
Constantine came over a lot of odds from the start, with Lucy Griffiths, the main actress of the pilot, leaving the show, there was a lot of doomsayers before the show even started letting the world know the show was destined for failure. On top of that, the first few episodes were a tad rough. They were ok, but nothing to really shake a stick at. The show really didn't hit a solid stride until the fourth episode, "A Feast of Friends," based off the first arc of HELLBLAZER. From there, the show really found it's footing. Sadly, it lost a lot of people looking forward to the show and once their gone, it's hard to get them back, which sucks because this is actually turning out to be one hell of a show.
Sure, not everything is NBC's fault when it comes of Constantine, but they certainly did set it up for failure, which sucks because it's easily one of the better comic book television series currently on the air, and as I said earlier, we live in a great age for that. What I want you, random person reading this who hasn't seen the show, is to give it a shot. Ignore my fanboy cries, whines, and pleas about how everything is awful, except the show and go check out "A Feast of Friends." You can watch it right here, along with the other episodes. Judge for yourself, since it's a show that never was really given a chance.
If you don't like, oh well. If you do like it, continue to watch it. Let people know. The writers of the show encourage people on Twitter to use #SaveConstantine when tweeting about it, so go do that. Again, it's a great show and there's lots of potential for growth, so let's try to save a show in a horrible time slot.
#SaveConstantine
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