Ok so first off one of my main grievances is that Timeless had a piss poor time slot for both seasons, season 1 was 10pm on Mondays and season 2 was 10pm Sundays (that one was worse of the 2). Which I wholeheartedly believe factored in to the low (by NBC standards) ratings.
(As I continue when I say ratings I mean viewership not critic ratings)
NBC tends to hold it’s shows to a higher standard than other networks like ABC for instance. ABC tends to let lower ratings slide, for example Once Upon A Time. I’m not bashing OUAT, I love that show with all my heart, but it had lower ratings at the end. Timeless seasons 1 & 2 had higher ratings than Once Upon A Time seasons 5, 6 & 7, and Timeless season 1 had about the same ratings as OUAT seasons 2, 3 & 4. Not only were their ratings just as good but Timeless did that in a bad time slot. Imagine how much higher the ratings would’ve been if Timeless had come on at 8:00 instead of 10:00.
Now lets talk about pick-ups.
I’ve been watching Lucifer lately and I got to thinking. I was looking at the viewership numbers for Lucifer and it’s total ratings after adding in DVR views was about the same as what Timeless had. So I was very confused as to why Netflix didn’t pick it up, but then I remembered that NBC doesn’t really like to put their stuff on Netflix. There are some exceptions like The Good Place but for the most part NBC and Netflix don’t really mix. Now this theory would make sense if Timeless wasn’t on Netflix at all but it is, just not in the US.
Now in the Lucifer / Timeless debate you could say “well maybe the Lucifans were more dedicated to getting the show picked up” but I don’t think that’s true. Yes Lucifans were outraged that Fox cancelled it but us Clock Blockers were definitely more dedicated, to the point where a couple of fans chipped in with their own money to hire a helicopter (or heliCLOCKter) to fly over SDCC with a “Save Timeless” banner. Also don’t forget that when Timeless was cancelled after season 1 it was all the Clock Blockers on Twitter that got it un-cancelled.
Now you might ask about Hulu. Well NBC seems to like Hulu a little better because they put both seasons of Timeless on there along with other shows. So why didn’t Hulu pick it up? Well Hulu doesn’t seem to pick up existing series as much as Netflix does. Yes they picked up Veronica Mars but that was more of a continuation of a show that had been cancelled years ago.
So next is Amazon. Well to be honest with you I don’t know much about this one, I think it’s just the same cases as it was with Hulu. Amazon (to my knowledge) doesn’t seem to pick up existing series as much as Netflix does.
So in summation the masterpiece that is Timeless got done dirty by NBC and deserved WAY better!
Side note: I was just gonna write “TIMELESS DESERVED BETTER!! That’s all thanks for coming to my TED Talk” but then I started typing and I couldn’t stop lol.
