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Fall 2016 TV: Winners, Losers, & What are you still watching?

By Alyssa

In an effort to appreciate the past year of excellent geeky TV, let’s reflect on the highlights and the misses. There was an amazing group of freshman series this fall from the lavish production of Westworld to one camera sitcoms People of the Earth. There were also some series which, in our opinion, were misses. The misses could be attributed to non-geeks developing products looking to capitalize on the boom of geek culture and they did not capture our attention or interest.

We took an informal survey of the Fall offerings in geek TV and are reporting our findings. We’ll also be taking a look at the second season of last year’s freshman class to see if they’re still holding our interest.

First to the disappointments, the clear losers which got multiple votes for the least liked series include:

  • MacGyver
  • Son of Zorn
  • Pure Genius
  • Aftermath

A few series got only one negative vote, Lethal Weapon & Van Helsing. While on the surface Aftermath & Van Helsing both combine two genres, post-apocalypse and vampires/supernatural, Aftermath however won the lowest ratings on our survey.

A few shows received both a vote in the ‘loser’ and in the ‘winner’ category: Incorporated, Channel Zero, Son of Zorn, and Timeless. I derive the motivation behind the vote to personal taste and appeal of the series.

The clear winners in order of our informal sample group are:

  • Westworld
  • Luke Cage
  • Designated Survivor

The following also received positive votes and our thinking is these will be renewed:

  • Mars
  • Good Behavior
  • Falling Water
  • Dirk Gently

There are a few more series with honorable mentions: Trollhunters, People of Earth, This is Us, and The Exorcist. All of these series have their strong followers and will hopefully garner a second season.

Stranger Things was not considered in this survey due to its early summer release. Due to the buzz over the summer, we expect it would have placed very high on the list. The same would be anticipated for other freshman series which debut during the spring including The Expanse, The Magicians, and Wynonna Earp.

The last category is a little more complicated. Here we asked what shows folks were still watching in season 2 or 3. We afforded folks a little latitude with the definition of ‘season 2 or 3’ but the series need to have started their second season. The following series received votes:

  • Flash
  • Supergirl
  • Gotham
  • Lucifer
  • 12 Monkeys
  • Ash vs. Evil Dead
  • Last Man on Earth
  • Legends of Tomorrow
  • Quantico
  • Blindspot
  • Fear the Walking Dead
  • Killjoys
  • Dark Matter

Looking at the voting we can see that there is a wide variety of series which appealed to the voters. a few in the superhero genres but quite a few are time travel related like Legends of Tomorrow or with twists to traditional ideas like Lucifer.

In conclusion, with all the new pay-to-play content providers, we have noticed it is harder to get a consensus on the singularly ‘best new show’ because inevitably a large number of folks don’t watch a particular pay-to-play channel. Arguably, in my opinion Westworld would take the prize if it was available to more people.

Want to add your winners & losers? Join us on the forum, here.

 

Alyssa

Alyssa bought her first comic at age 7 and was hooked. She has collected comics most of her life. Recently, she has branched out to comic art and books and the occasional Lego set. She goes to as many cons as she can and enjoys the 'long form' storytelling of the television medium. She is also a foodie and is always up for trying new and different food.