‘V’ Invasion Plan Won’t Change
‘V’ Invasion Plan Won’t Change, Despite Stellar Ratings
by Matt Webb Mitovich
Nov 5th, 2009
‘V’ is for ratings victory.
Based on updated Nielsen numbers, the Tuesday premiere of ABC’s sci-fi reboot mesmerized 14.3 million total viewers and delivered the best demos of any drama debut - on any network - since a little show called ‘Lost‘ crash-landed on our screens in 2004.
‘V’s’ impressive arrival also represents the first scripted ABC series in five years to best CBS’ ‘NCIS’ in the demos.
Those superlatives and others would suggest that ABC is rethinking its decision, made in September, to launch ‘V’ with a four-week run and then unspool the first season’s nine remaining episodes in the spring, after NBC’s eyeball-dominating Winter Olympics coverage has wrapped.
ABC is however “sticking with the plan” of a “pod” roll-out, a network spokeswoman tells Fancast.com. So those getting sucked into the lizards-among-us tale will simply have to accept a prolonged hiatus following the Nov. 24 outing, which of course ends with a jaw-dropping moment.
ABC may not have had much of a choice in standing by its scheduling decision. Warner Bros. TV interrupted production on ‘V’ in late August, so that the show could fine-tune its creative product, and just this week the series shuffled show runners (’Chuck‘ producer Scott Rosenbaum is now in charge). Add it all up, and a quicker turnaround of Episodes 5 and beyond - which are not set to begin production until January - is too formidable a feat, even if desired.
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