Weekly Update – Stargate: Universe Gets First Cast; Virtuality Delayed Again., Heroes/Battlestar Galactica Online; Ratings Update

Stargate Universe Gets First Cast: The third series entry in the Stargate franchise has announced that Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty) will take up the lead role. The series, targeted for a Summer 2009 premiere, will follow a group travelling through the far reaches of space after they must escape through a Stargate.

Virtuality Still Not on Schedule: The completed Science Fiction pilot Virtuality from Battlestar Galactica co-creator Ronald Moore has yet to receive a green-light. FOX executives have viewed it, but may delay it further and ask for some re-tooling. The pilot had originally been hinted to air late Fall 2008 / early Spring 2009. They did like what they saw in the Science Fiction comedy Boldly Going Nowhere, though, and may move forward with it.

Heroes Webseries: To fill the gap during the hiatus between the end of Volume 3: Villains and the beginning of Volume 4: Fugitives (which starts February 2nd), a web series will run on NBC.com called Heroes: The Recruit. The first episode is now available and can be viewed at this link: www.nbc.com/Heroes/The-Recruit/
Battlestar Galactica Recap/Preview: As fans get ready for BSG’s return on January 16th, they can watch the online preview for Season 4.5 and get up to date with the thirteen minute recap video. Both videos as well as the "The Face of the Enemy” web-series are available at the BSG website: www.scifi.com/battlestar/

Ratings Update: Probably the biggest ratings news from the week of December 7th is the performance of both of CBS’s genre teasing procedurals. The Mentalist pulled 13.65 million total viewers for a repeat airing and is the undisputed hit among new series for the season. It is even pushing its timeslot competitor Fringe in the 18-49 demographic now. Previously the FOX show had won in that demographic while The Mentalist took honors in total viewers each week. Fringe will definitely have to gear up for the race when it returns from its hiatus in February if it doesn’t want to fade behind The Mentalist’s momentum. On Thursday, CBS’s The Eleventh Hour pulled its highest numbers for the season so far with 13.43 million viewers. The eye network seemed to be losing patience with the series because it regularly lost a fair amount of its CSI lead-in audience, a fact which possibly prompted the truncated back-half order of five instead of nine episodes. But this series falls only behind their other hit on Tuesday nights in total viewers for a new show, so it seems like they should stick with it a bit longer. Meanwhile, on FOX, The Sarah Connor Chronicles fell to a season low when it only pulled half the viewers in the 18-49 demographic that a 35 year old Charlie Brown repeat enjoyed. Seems very likely that this series will not see life beyond its back-nine episodes which will begin airing in February. Keep up with the weekly ratings with our Network Ratings Tracker as well as the likelihood of cancellation with the Renew/Cancel Index at TV by Numbers.