On Tuesday April 17, the first season finale of The CW’s ‘Ringer’ aired, and many have doubted if the series will live to see a season two. Despite premiering to a strong figure of 2.8 million viewers in September, the ratings have been in a steady and ultimately precipitous decline to the point where just 1.16 million viewers watched Tuesday’s finale. The fate of the series is now in serious question.

This all marks quite a contrast from this time one year ago when ‘Ringer’ was one of the most buzzed-about and eagerly-awaited new pilots. It marked star Sarah Michelle Gellar’s return to series television after an eight-year break following a seven-year run on the critically-beloved ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, and brought together an eclectic supporting cast including Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd and ‘Lost’ star Nestor Carbonell.

Originally developed for CBS by ‘Supernatural’ writers Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder, the series features Gellar in a dual role as twin sisters Bridget and Siobhan. In the pilot, Bridget, a recovering drug addict and former prostitute, was set to testify against a murderer when fear for her own life prompted her to contact her estranged, not to mention extremely affluent, sister Siobhan for protection.

However, once reunited, Siobhan faked her own death for unknown reasons and Bridget in turn assumed her sister’s identity in an effort to escape from her predicament, but consequently placed herself in even more danger due to her sister’s own problems.

The plot itself is perhaps indicative of why ‘Ringer’ failed to connect with a mass audience. From the first episode alone, ‘Ringer’ featured a convoluted story and a multitude of storylines. As the season progressed, further twists were introduced including, but not limited to: affairs, kidnappings, murders, corporate blackmail, faked assaults, and a paternity mystery which was not resolved until Tuesday’s finale.

With every twist, ‘Ringer’ became more and more of a plot-driven series which relied on sensationalism and shock-value as a means of compensating for its under-developed characters and rushed narrative developments.

Add this to the fact that ‘Ringer’ was paired on The CW’s schedule with the younger-skewing ’90210′, and that it aired opposite heavyweights ‘The Voice’, ‘Dancing With the Stars’, and ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ which cumulatively attract upwards of 35 million viewers, and it becomes clear that ‘Ringer’ was not in the position to come out of the gate with an intricate premise which depended upon undivided attention from its audience from the get-go.

To make things even more challenging for the creative team behind the series, The CW placed ‘Ringer’ on a nine-week hiatus in the middle of its season, meaning that production on much of the second half of the season went on without any audience feedback.

Once ‘Ringer’ returned to the schedule at the end of January, it was too late to make any changes, and all The CW has been able to do is to sit back and watch the ratings drop in a year where almost all of its other series have been in significant ratings decline.

‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Nikita’, ’90210′ and newcomer ‘Hart of Dixie’ are all hovering around similarly low levels, but none had the expectations of success that ‘Ringer’ had, nor did they have the spectre of Gellar’s cult-classic ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ looming over their heads.

Now with its season wrapped well before May sweeps, a renewal for ‘Ringer’ is looking less and less likely. Even if The CW did consider giving it a last-minute pick-up, the new season would not premiere until September, meaning that the series would be off the air for at least five months, a break twice as long as the one ‘Ringer’ already went through this season and which already proved detrimental to any ratings momentum ‘Ringer’ may have had in its early weeks.

It would take a giant leap of faith on the network’s part, and an even larger creative restructuring behind-the-scenes for ‘Ringer’ to live to see another season.

The article ‘Ringer’ – TV’s Biggest Disappointment appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Glee has been a television and cultural phenomenon since its debut in 2009. Centring around a high school glee club in the fictional town of Lima, Ohio, the series has made household names of its stars Lea Michele, Jane Lynch and Matthew Morrison. The cast’s musical recordings have broken chart and touring records, while the producers have launched a successful companion reality series entitled “The Glee Project”, which seeks to find new singers for the mother series.

However, now in its third season, Glee is facing a number of challenges both on and offscreen, the latest of which is the announcement that this summer will not see the cast embark on a US and UK tour, one which proved to be one of the most successful tours of 2011. While FOX insists that the absence of a tour this year is simply a way of giving give the cast a break after three years of continuous work, the decision comes as the latest in a line of challenges which the show has had to face in recent times.

Firstly, the show has experienced a steady ratings decline during this season. In its last airing on February 14, Glee garnered 6.99 million viewers, down 24% from its season premiere on September 20. More worrying, on a year-to-year scale this marked a 34% decline from the 10.53 million it attracted on February 15, 2010.

This comes in spite of high-profile tributes to West Side Story, Michael Jasckson, and a well-publicised episode depicting several major characters losing their virginities. The series has even started being beaten in the coveted 18-49 demographic by new comedy series New Girl, which airs straight after Glee on FOX’s Tuesday night line-up.

Secondly, the show has come under intense scrutiny over the long-term futures of its stars Lea Michele, Corey Monteith, Dianna Agron and Chris Colfer, among others, as their characters approach graduation. At first, reports surfaced that several of the departing characters would be spun-off into their own series set in New York, depicting them attending a performing arts school, with even Colfer releasing a statement indicating his probable departure at the end of season three.

However, those rumours were later dismissed by show runner Ryan Murphy, but confusion remains over how exactly the stars would continue to figure into the show’s storylines once their characters have graduated.

Thirdly, Glee’s attempt to segue onto the big-screen got off to a lukewarm start when ‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie‘ failed to perform as well as expected, grossing just $18 million at the box office. The movie opened to mixed critical reviews, and its failure marked the first significant sign of the franchise’s vulnerability after just two years of production.

Finally, but perhaps not surprisingly, the series has gone out of fashion with major award voters. Despite winning three Emmys for its freshman season, that tally decreased to one for its sophomore season, and the show walked away empty-handed at both this year’s Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

This is not surprising as Glee has been accused repeatedly of uneven storytelling and relying too heavily on stunt casting, with the last 12 months featuring appearances by Gwyneth Paltrow, Ricky Martin, Britney Spears and John Stamos. Add that to the fifteen actors already comprising the main cast, and the criticism begins to take on merit.

Ratings-wise, Glee has never been the number one show on television – it has yet to rank in the top 30 for a whole season – but its online presence, chart records and critical buzz have ensured it a prime spot on FOX’s broadcast schedule. Yet, facing a continuing ratings decline, the potential loss of its stars and dwindling industry support; FOX’s former powerhouse may be in need of some significant revamping if it hopes to stick to the same formula and with the same cast members for its as-yet-unconfirmed fourth season.

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ABC’s hit sitcom will return for its third season on February 14, following an unprecedented, nationwide promotional campaign. Cougar Town, a half-hour comedy starring Courteney Cox (Friends, Scream), follows Jules Cobb (Cox) and her close circle of friends as they attempt to navigate their way through parenthood, marriage, dating and work.

The series has been off the air in the U.S. since last May after ABC opted against giving the show a spot on its fall schedule, offering only vague assertions that it would return at some point at ‘midseason‘. However, the series’ cast and crew have turned to social media in an effort to maintain public interest and to engage with their fan base in a face-to-face manner.

The main feature of their promotional campaign has been Cougar Town viewing parties, which have been in operation across the U.S. for several weeks now as cast and crew members travelled to various cities to interact with fans, offer special screenings of new episodes, take part in Q&A sessions, and to counteract any waning interest as a result of ABC’s delay in confirming a return date for the series, which had previously been airing alongside the network’s Emmy award-winning series Modern Family.

In a further effort to reignite the old and spark some new interest, series star Courteney Cox joined Twitter in January of this year and has since amassed over 90,000 followers. Cox has sent out over 1,000 tweets, the majority of which have sought to publicise the show and to offer Cougar Town fans exclusive behind-the-scenes footage.

As recently as Wednesday February 8, Cox was overseeing a competition to reward 50 fans with bottles of wine – in partnership with THECULTWINE.COM - provided that fans show proof of their age and make a pledge to watch Cougar Town on Tuesday February 14 at 8:30pm.

This is not the first time that cast-members involved with the series have reached out as a way of rewarding and strengthening their audience’s support. In an April 2011 episode, one character read out a telephone number which viewers could in turn call. If they got through, they could speak to actors, writers, and various others involved with the series.

These tactics have all been designed to keep Cougar Town on the public radar in spite of its middling ratings, with several fans going so far as to display billboards in support of the show during television coverage of this year’s Super Bowl, in the hopes of winning a walk-on role from the producers.

Show-runner Bill Lawrence recently expressed his frustration over the ‘flawed system‘ which monitors television ratings and which will ultimately determine the future of his series beyond this season, explaining that the primary hope of his self-funded campaigning is for:

a Nielsen family [to] … want to keep show alive. Ruining it for the masses or encouraging them to watch on their computer doesn’t matter until the system changes.

While there have been instances in the past of grass-roots campaigns being organised to combat network decisions – for example when Jericho fans persuaded CBS to reverse the series’ cancellation in 2007 – the involvement of the Cougar Town cast in this campaign has been particularly note-worthy, as has the fact the majority of their events have been planned entirely through the use of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The true impact of Lawrence’s, Cox’s, the audience’s and others’ efforts to promote Cougar Town will be made apparent in the coming weeks when the series returns to ABC’s schedule and everyone involved attempts to lure, and hopefully increase, their 7.3 million weekly viewers from last season.

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