CBS had a pretty disappointing premiere Monday, but the lowlight was its performance in the 10/9c hour with new limited series Hostages. A week after Under the Dome signed off for the summer with a 2.8 demo rating, Hostages took the timeslot down a full point with a 1.8 demo. It did significantly worse than its already disappointing lead-in from the premiere of Mom. And it was more than doubled up by competing newbie The Blacklist on NBC (3.8).
WEEK TWO
It only got worse for CBS in week two, and Hostages was no exception. It dropped 17% to a 1.5 demo (from a 2.2 Mom lead-in) and was once again more than doubled up by The Blacklist (3.3).
PROGNOSIS
It was the weakest show in CBS' relatively soft 10/9c hour from Monday to Thursday during premiere week. In week two, there's a small chance it could be the weakest even counting Friday and Sunday! So this is a Cancel, though don't count out CBS claiming that it was a mini-series all along so there's nothing to cancel. The question is whether CBS actually has some kind of reasonable replacement in the immediate future. Replacing a drama is not quite as easy as replacing a comedy for CBS. Might they bring in the six leftover Unforgettable episodes? Might they actually flip it with something like The Mentalist or former occupant Hawaii Five-0? Dunno.
"First Two Weeks" is an ongoing experiment to see how often a new scripted show's fate can be predicted by the very earliest data. Here are the picks and lineups for every show this season.
