Since it's Rubicon finale day, it's going to be all Rubicon, all the time (for me at least). I'm especially excited to see what happens Will, Kale, Truxton, and the country, when we tune in tonight to see the aftermath of the horrifying events of "Wayward Sons." Haven't seen that episode? Don't worry, I won't spoil you of any of the gory details in this article.
Rubicon hasn't had a huge amount of viewers, but one thing you can say is that the viewership has remained incredibly steady. The show premiered with 1.07 million viewers with its June preview. Episode twelve, "Wayward Sons," which aired last week, attracted 1.26 million viewers.
Now, this isn't counting the viewer bump that Rubicon got during its two-hour official premiere, which saw numbers propelled up to 2 million. Once the curiosity was satisfied, though, numbers for the next episode fell back to 1.2 million, which seems the comfortable margin for the show. Is that great? Not really, but it does imply one thing: solid. Rubicon found a niche and stayed in it.
"The penultimate episode on Sunday was up 50% from a 0.2 rating to a 0.3 rating (some of the increase is the benefit of only seeing the ratings rounded to tenths), and up 30% with total viewers," says TV by the Numbers. That's not a bad number, not at all. "While even at those levels the numbers are still tiny, it is hard to predict what AMC will do. I don’t love Rubicon’s chances, but even at those levels it’s not completely unfathomable that AMC will renew it."
AMC has a pattern of doing this, though: they renewed Mad Men after a dismal first season of around .9 million viewers, meaning that they're not afraid to lose money to support a high-quality show.
Rubicon's season finale will air tonight at 9/8c on AMC, and will be followed by the fourth season finale of Mad Men at 10/9c.
Let's hope this great show is getting a second season!!
I'm hoping that it's renewed and that AMC re-airs the first season, or releases it on DVD. It's already on iTunes. This is a show that viewers need to see from the beginning, so there's plenty of time between now and Season 2 to increase the audience beyond those of us who were riveted to our sets for Season 1. I'm interested in re-watching all the episodes just to see what I missed, because I already know there was a lot.
I live in a country that doesn't air it, so I watched on the pirate streaming site Project Free TV, every episode I saw, had 66,000 views plus…. there's another 66,000 people who watched it at Project Free TV. I know that doesn't help AMC make money, but hey, maybe they could sell this show to Australia and New Zealand and South Africa TV Stations too…. I know they sold it to the BBC so brits are gonna see season 1. God I hope they renew it.
Rubicon is simply one of the best, most intelligent, thrilling, and completely unique televisions shows on the airwaves. I've been a big fan since episode one. I sincerely hope AMC decides to do the right thing and renew it; judging from their past decisions, I do truly believe that they will. The show is too good to get rid of.
Furthermore, it's one of the rare shows (aside from Law & Order, and its spin-offs SVU and CI) that is set in New York and actually films on location. It is truly a boon to the incredibly talented and under-represented (on film and television) New York acting community.