At this point I don't think it really matters when they premiere. They aren't going to do another season so if the ratings fall or go up it doesn't matter. You also can take it closer to the holidays without a rerun if you wait a week or two.

Psst, don't tell Ostroff that. She thinks that they can blackmail or beat TW into submission, snerks.

I e-mailed someone officially with the show, and they have no idea where the Oct. 2 came from, and are still planning for Sept. 18... *sigh* confusing.

Well this season's getting off to a rollicking start.

Lol. Did you really expect nothing less from The CW?

LMAO.I wonder how this network manages to get any advertisers on board at all.But oh well it's not like there are billions of SV fans patiently waiting or are they?

I tend to go back and forth with this one...its an incredibly bipolar series.

Oct. 2 is when we'll know the season is officially off-track already.

It's hard enough to spead the news and get people back to watch, now we have possible a big chunk of people who will feel free to space out Thrusday nights for another two weeks. Not like the ratings are suffering already or anything. Sure, lets add as much confusion as possible.

They had better sort out their start schedule and then pimp the hell out of the right date ASAP, I don't think the show can take the hit numbers wise.

Speaking of viewereship, anyone know if Canada will be blessed/cursed with an early viewing next year?

According to what I've read and posted about around a month back - Canada is no longer (at least in Ontario) getting an early viewing. The rights for SV and also SPN and Reaper are now held by SUNTV which is a Toronto based station who is getting a repeater signal in London and somewhere around Ottawa. I have the lowest tier of extended cable so I get Sun now. I got it for the third season of VM when it went to Sun. I don't know whether the western A-channels will be getting it it or not. AFAIK, Space will still be showing it on Sundays, so that would be the closest thing to a national showing up here it gets. What this also means for Canadians, is that SV is being shown at the same time and "simulcast" which means that the idiot CRTC mandated Canadian commercials will be shown even on the CW and that the previews for the next week won't since Canada never gets the previews - they have to have that extra 30 seconds of commercials, after all. What ? Me bitter?

That's a great pity since the early viewings gave me time to get over (or at least brace myself for) the crappiest of the craptastick stuff before I had to watch. I never could just skip watching, but knowing when to go in with my expectations low really helped.

Who am I kidding? I should always go in with my expectations set super low.

What, no Canadian thread? I always had to argue with myself before reading it, but I like having it there to warn me (how would I have dealt with "Sleeper" otherwise?).

Somehow, I still haven't figured out how to do that.

In next week's TV Guide, the episode description for the 7/24/08 episode of Smallville in the grid is as follows: A roadie gets superpowers after chewing kryptonite-laced gum accidentally.

Okay, here's my question: I know that they don't have a lot of room in the grid for description, but wouldn't it be advantageous to include the name "Pete Ross" in there somewhere? There might be a lot of people who missed Hero the first time around (and I think there were if I remember from the ratings this episode got), who aren't spoiler freaks and who have no idea that Sam Jones III is in this episode.
Even if the description had said, "an old friend returns as a roadie..." it might have at least made someone (who hadn't already seen the episode) stop and wonder who the friend was and tune in for that reason. JMHO, of course...Oy vey.

Poor forgotten SJIII.

IMO, TV Guide should have posted no episode description this week. People might have accidentally tuned in, not knowing it was Stride, one of the worst episodes in Smallville history. I will certainly skip the repeat this week now. YMMV.Damn, that is depressing. I found the Canadian thread essential in knowing when to fast forward and when to skip (cough Sleeper cough) this year. The thought of facing an episode like Fierce or Sleeper without a full day to prepare myself is a little intimidating. YMMV.

I definitely don't consider Hero or "Stride" Must-See TV, but at the same time SV could use all the help it could get from promos and such. Now, if people did get excited and tuned in to see SJIII, they would probably end up being disappointed like the majority of us were, but maybe not so disappointed that they wouldn't tune in for the episode in 2 weeks which is Traveler. TV watching in the summer is rather slim pickings unless you're into inane reality shows. Also, I think less people have cable (which narrows their options) than we (whoever "we" is) think they do.

I'm not someone that tends to refer to characters or episodes in nicknames, but I honestly think of it as "Stride" in my head sometimes. Like, once I was going through the episodes and thought "'Siren,' 'Fracture,' 'Stride', er...uh, 'Hero'...."

Right, ratings. They probably figure they might as well get as much mileage out of the insane product placement as they can be showing it again.

I'm right there with you and until you pointed it out just now, I didn't even remember it had a different name. Stride gum probably knew what it was doing after all. Any publicity can be considered good publicity and the name Stride sure has remained a popular conversation piece.

You're not alone (give me your hand). I call the episode Stride too.

Oh yeah! I knew I was right! The Smallville/Supernatural Thursday returns, September 18th!
/

does anyone know on what channel/at what time Smallville airs in Canada?

It's moved to SunTV, Thursdays at 8pm in Ontario. I have no idea if it's a national channel or not. Otherwise, Space is showing it Wednesdays at 8pm, but they're generally a week-ish behind.

Sept. 11 is a repeat of "Quest," which makes me wonder if the premiere has been pushed back to Sept. 25.... either that or they skipped "Arctic," which would make no sense to me.

Is your info according to TV Guide or somewhere else? Just curious.

Aargh!!! I hope that's not the case. Maybe Odyssey just isn't ready yet as far as editing and sfx and everything? It's still annoying though.

On a bitter side note, CBS is already promoting the new season of Survivor which starts Sept. 18th and the new season of Amazing Race which doesn't even start until Sept. 28th!

Craig, I'm hoping you're right about Tuesday's airing of Justice possibly having the new Season 8 promo...

SunTV up here in Canada has been promoting the hell out of Smallville and they're still saying Sept. 18, so unless it's a very new development, I think it's still going on as planned.

With a new promo/footage?
*getting slightly excited*

Hah. No. Mostly S7 footage, with Clark flying from Crusade thrown in for kicks.

Which is the least The CW could do for us. Gah.

I guess I'll have to start watching Sun. The only promos I've seen have been the ones on Space which is a listing of all the shows starting new seasons (or at least new to Space) with one scene from SV coming right at the end - and it's from Crimson. (shudder)

I'm routing for the show to fall below 3M viewers this year. I want the show to end and they apparently are not intent on doing so with dignity. If they think they get a S9, they will stretch this already seriously tired horse. From what I can tell, the S8 story is dreck. I want it over. I think the only way they will not try this stretch-out game is if the ratings are not there to support hope. It means jobs for people. Ron Moore took the right approach with BSG. He called it early on that it ended after 4 seasons. People had time to find jobs and they wrapped up on their own terms.

As for chances, I think the first episode will do better than 3M but I'm hoping it tanks after that. Terrrible isn't it. It's just how I feel. It's entirely possible that the Clois-heavy spoilers are false and due to a desperate attempt to get in mythos fans (who are not likely to return) but I think it's more likley that the only reason we have anything OTHER than Clois spoilers is because they are attempting to string fans along until at least mid-November for sweeps. Lack of news on KK may also mean they are trying to push her into a later slot than planned to string along that fan base as well. The spoilers are real but distorted from what I can tell to keep viewers interested. It's this distortion--- which is tantamount to lying for me --- which causes me to want them to fail in the rating this year.

Okay, I just had to see why Smallville wasn't airing on September 4th. The series premiere of 90210 is having an encore presentation on that night. Tonight, Smallville is on with Justice.

Does anyone else see what's going on?

They're trying the highest rated episode of Smallville in 90210's regular spot, and the series premiere of 90210 in Smallville's regular spot. Not only are they sacrificing showing Arctic again before the premiere for 90210, but they're potentially seeing what it would be like if they switched. I, for one, am worried.

And also, this is absolute bullshit.

Are you sure they want to switch them? It feels like they're just trying to trick more people into watching the premiere of 90210 by putting it in Smallville's regular place.

oops

From the Siteville thread:Last season, even a low rated episode of Smallville still averaged 4.2 million viewers, adjusted for DVR viewing.

In July, the best selling Superman Comic book on the market, Action Comics, sold 49,349 issues. (I am disregarding team comic books like Superman/Batman or Trinity, which sold 50,000-60,000 issues, because of the impact of the Batman character, whose comics sold 75,000 (Detective Comics) to 103,000 (Batman) in the same time period. Source.)

Assuming that:
- Every comic book buying fan of Superman does not watch Smallville, and
- Every comic book buying fan of Superman tunes on for season eight, and
- A representitive number of those comic book buying fan of Superman have Neilsen boxes, then
- Smallville could get a 1.12% ratings boost (50,000/4,200,000) from the comic book fans.

Now, this has to offset the lost fans Lex/Clex and Lana/Clana, cast changes that were outside the control of PS3. It also has to offset any disgruntled fans of Chloe/Chlark/Chlois, who are not happy with the reboot or Chloe 2.0, changes which were entirely under the control of PS3. SueB's excellent analysis of the 2008 K-Site awards shows, IMO, that this exodus may have already begun. The Best Couple voting shows that, rather the number of Clois fans growing from season six to season seven, the number of Chlark and Clana fans has dropped sharply. YMMV.

I am also not sure how the new/old mythology fans will find out they should watch the rebooted Smallville, with a focus on Clois at the Daily Planet. The CW has done a laughable job promoting the Smallville premiere, with the trailer for Oddessy just coming out this week... on the CW web site. There have been plenty of spoilers for seaosn eight, especially after ComicCon, but they are also online. Unless you are already a hardcore fan, I do not know how you would find out about the changes.

If a show changes to seek a new audience and no one tells the new audience... will it matter?

I will point out, that the highest rated episode of the season featured two supermen fighting over a shirtless Chloe, Clex working together, Chimmy breaking up and no Lois. The lowest? A (revealed to be fake) Clana reunion and Lois fucking her evil cloned boss in the workplace. Take that for what you will.

I watch any and everything comic book related, yet I haven't bought a comic in ages. So to assume only people who buy Superman comic books currently are the only people in the "Comic Book" fan category is a bad assumption. I would guess a majority of loyal Superman readers are probably already watching the show. Now fairweather comic book fans like myself who will watch alot of stuff comic book related is a much larger audience then 50k. And looking at the recent comic book movies over the past few years it does tell me, do a good story people will watch. Smallville on the other hand has done a pretty piss poor of telling Clark Kent's story, if they can change that next season I think they can get a decent chunk of fans like myself(the ones who usually only tune in for the gimmicky super hero episodes)



As I pointed out gimmick episode seem to get higher ratings. The episode in question you bring up as the highest rated had nothing to do with Chloe, Chimmy, Clex, people tuned in to see what they will do with Dean Cain. I am pretty sure if Dean Cain appeared in any other episode, Cure wouldn't have got as high a ratings as it did and whatever episode he appeared in would have got spiked ratings.

I can scew the ratings anyway you want. How about this? Season 7 was the worst rated season to date and in season 7 Chloe and Clark worked together more then ever while Lois and Clark got limited screentime compared to any other year(I don't honestly believe that is the reason the ratings were so low but if I wanted to make that arguement to try put down Chloe like you seem fit to do with Lois then I could).

My point was that the comic book buying fans are a much, much smaller group than the existing Smallville viewing audience. The comic books have been making changes for years to be more like Smallville - meteor freaks in Smallville, a larger role for Lana Lang, and more recently Chloe almost being introduced in Action Comics. Arguing that "comic book fans" who are not watching the show are the cure of all of Smallville's ills, is a stretch, IMO, but YMMV.Based on the message boards I have seen, a lot of the comic book buying fans left a long time ago, but YMMV.I would agree that the premieres and event episodes have a larger number of causal fans (not necessarily comic book fans), who tune in and go away. IMO, PS3 is gambling that they can attract enough of these fans to make up the difference from disgrutled Lex/Lana/Chloe/ship fans who do not like the reboot. IMO, this is a big gamble.

When you consider the lack of promotion for Smallville, how will these casual fans know about the changes? More importantly, when you look at all the ship-based information we already have for season eight (which has inspired nicknames like Clark Kent: Man Whore or SwingerVile), will these fair weather fans stick around? Or will they take off, the same way they have for the past seven years? I am not going to hope PS3, after years of writing for Smallville, are going to start cranking out TDK quality scripts every week. YMMV.

Run, Aqua, Cyborg and GreenArrowVille show, IMO, that new fans came for the heroes - but they came in addition to the exisitng fans base, not instead of them. If PS3 has driven off the old fan base, and the casual fans follow the traditional "come for the premiere, leave within a few episodes" viewing patterns, then the ratings will not be pretty.

Exactly RepairmanBob, which is why what they are doing is fucking stupid as hell. Especially given Smallville is an eight year old show and one that is on it's last legs. The last thing they should be doing is alienating the long term fans. They've already lost so many with the departures of Lex, Lionel, and yes even(much as I loath to admit it)Lana that they should be doing everything in their power to keep the rest of their longterm fans on as much as possible. Rebooting the show at this stage is clearly a desperation ploy on the parts of PS3 in hopes of getting another season. They hope that by shedding the baggage(past seven seasons)of the past and essentially starting over that they are going to bring in and retain enough new viewers that they'll be able to continue on in some way.

I don't think it will work. They might get more causal viewers initially but then the problem is that those viewers will go away just like they always do. The other problem with this reboot is that it's only a part-time thing given that ED is only in half the episodes. If they really wanted to go full force with this reboot agenda they should have upped her episode count to a full 22 episodes. I still believe in the reboot is part of their agenda but like almost everything else on this show it's being done half-assed. The reboot nature will be felt mostly in the episodes that ED is in and the rest of the time it will resemble the Smallville of old. This flip/flop nature of the show IMO will only serve to drive viewers away. I don't see this a ratings boost at all.

According to Kryptonsite the first 10 episodes will be airing without any breaks.

Good to hear. I like a big uninterrupted chunk. The only downside is that we'll have to wait two months for Legion. :\

My poor fingers...

Aw . . poor baby! Come closer. SMOOOCH!

There. All better.

Awww, poor Omar. Does it help to know you have our undying devotion and gratitude for all your hard work?

So last week SV was pre-empted by 90210 so we no longer had last year's season finale to lead into the premier and on top of that they run a 90210 promo over the credits instead of a promo for the season premier. Anyone know what's 90210's numbers look like? Is it going to knock SV out of the CW's the top scripted drama slot?

90210 did great the first week, a new high for the CW, but "tanked" the second week bringing in only 3.3 million. Hee!

JWM

90210 Premier Ratings

From the page linked above
These ratings things I don't know much about but their victory cries seem hollow to me. Didn't Smallville break 5.0 million for Bizarro? And as for the 2.6 number -- that's based on share, right? So by premiering against mostly repeats wouldn't their share number be artificially high in the first place?

Regardless if they lost 1/3 of their audience in one week it doesn't bode well for the show, nor the network.

I'm curious what SV's numbers are going to be. With KK and MR gone a repeat of 5 million seems pretty much out of reach. Anyone think 4.5 million is possible? I'm guessing 4.25 million.

Sadly, I hope SV's ratings tank. Only if this is the final season (and TPTB know it) do I think we'll get anything worth watching.

Ain't that the truth. But then, this network has never been very on the whole, IMO.

2.6 was the rating point, not the share. (The exact number was 2.6/7 - 2.6 is the rating point, 7 is the share. And yes, the share would be "artificially high", in a sense, when fewer people are watching TV and everything else is in repeats. The rating point, however, can be used for comparison any day of the year, since that isn't based on how many people are watching on a given night.)

I've probably watched about eight hours of The CW over the past two weeks, and I saw maybe five 15-second promos for Smallville's premier. I've only seen the full trailer once, last night, in the middle of the "Quest" rerun.

ANTM, their highest rated show, is also over 5 years old and also got almost no promotion, and the ratings were lower, too, with no new programming for competition. So it doesn't bode well for Smallville at all. Coupled with the earlier premier date; people are usually expecting all the fall shows to come on around the same week, the last week of September.

The lack of promotion is strange. If they were rebooting, which I don't think they actually are, you'd think they'd want to sell it not just online, but on the network, as something shinynew. I guess they figure most longtime viewers will probably still watch on autopilot? (Not counting the ones who go online and have read spoilers.)

That is what I do not understand as well. PS3 have been screaming MYTHOS and ICONIC since before ComicCon, presumably with the hope of drawing in some of the former fans from the earlier, less crap-tastic years. But how in Zod's name are those folks supposed to know about the changes (starting with Clois in the Daily Planet) is there is no advertising? Since almost all the commercials for Smallville are shown during Smallville, it could be real easy for the casual viewer to miss that the premiere is next week.

I could also see a backlash happening real fast for false advertising in Odyssey. The promos have been all JL and the search for Clark - which JH says wraps up in the first part of the episode. Selling the premiere as Justice 2 and not delivering might not be the best idea ever, but YMMV.Ha!