Yes, the ratings don't matter anymore. To answer OP, they were pretty good in S1 but they've pretty much steadily lost viewership since, to the point where a fifth season was maybe on the table as recently as the start of this year. But at this point ratings look beyond recovery.
About 3 million watched the series premiere, rest of the season maintained 2 million viewers. S2 premiered to just 1.66 million, and saw that get closer and closer to 1 million all season, including one that fell under. The most recent episode saw about 800,000 viewers, lowest of the series. So yeah, bad trend.
Anyways, FX doesn't ever seem to care about ratings. Louie is one of the most successful shows and has sometimes had episodes with only 300,000 viewers. Despite all the action, I've heard The Strain has a reasonable budget. Not sure what the critical reception is right now, but obviously it's not an awards horse.
So it make sense 4 will be the last. Hopefully it's as good as S1 so this can be considered a decent show, but the viewership has, for me, declined along with the quality.
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weemonk
8 years ago
Thanks veil182. I think season 2 did a bit of damage as I struggled sometimes with some of the silly plots such as when the bomb went off when they had The Master in the same room allowing him to escape. I kinda set into that mode you get with shows where you watch because they aren't terrible but aren't fantastic and you've watched from the beginning, or they started out great and decline but again you watch from loyalty.....but this season seems to have picked up which in turn has re-invested my interest. Hoping TWD will do the same with S7.
Gone are the days of sensible 5 season arc planning and leaving it be. Some of the better shows that stay near to that rule are still remembered because of it.
As much as it pains when a really good show ends it's all about not dragging out a show - Banshee, Breaking Bad, The Wire all did this.
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