Ratings for “The Constant” Are In
Strangely enough, what was arguably the best Lost episode of the season was also the lowest rated yet. "The Constant" was seen by 12.9 million viewers, and the fact that it was topped in total viewers by Don’t Forget the Lyrics on Fox makes me weep for humanity. Seriously, you have the chance to watch one of the most intelligent episodes of television ever, which contains physics and time travel and allusions to Slaughterhouse Five, and instead you want to watch a show where people struggle to remember the words to Phil Collins songs? I wish I could reach out my hand and smack the 14.6 million Don’t Forget the Lyrics viewers, though I’m sure they’re all lovely people deep down inside.
In case anyone is keeping a tally, here’s what the ratings look like for the season:
"The Beginning of the End" — 16.07 million
"Confirmed Dead" — 15.06 million
"The Economist" — 13.62 million
"Eggtown" — 13.53 million
"The Constant" — 12.9 million
Damn…..Lost is on a steady drop…and that just proves the theory that the smarter the show/episode, the less people will watch it. Probably due to the fact that they don’t want to challenge themselves in actually thinking, but instead would rather Sing along to Michael Bolton.
Comment by Corb_N — February 29, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
I think the problem is, unfortunately, that Lost is becoming TOO smart for people. In past seasons viewers were comfortable to sit back and imagine what the smoke monster could be, or why Locke was mysteriously getting orders from Walt, but the show has changed. Now people are forced to wrap their minds around actual scientific theory, and not everyone likes that. I do however, and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to “figure things out” instead of just wondering what something is.
Comment by Jessie — February 29, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
Well while that all may be true, I’m PRAYING that it’s just because it’s so good that people DVR it so they can watch it multiple times and review it, so they don’t show up in the ratings.
The numbers will go down more once we go to the 10 PM slot. People on here have said it. It’s too late, people have work in the morning. Stupid ABC.
SO will we ever get DVR ratings included with neilson ratings? Like, where do we stand on that?
Comment by Larry — February 29, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
Some people, like myself, care more about the mysteries of the island, jacob, the others etc., and with the exception of last night, no episode has touched on this. for me, once again with the exception of the constant, this season is unfortunately becoming much like the beginning of the third season where its the same thing every week.
season three- kate and sawayer are in a cage and picket hits sawyer alot, ben needs surgery, and jack yells at juliet and ben
season 4-a few people landed on the island, a few people get off, the freighters won’t tell anyone whats going on, locke and some of the losties are at the barracks
woop di do
the show has become to redundant
Comment by matt — February 29, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
redundant? are you kidding. every episode has been completely different. plus you just compaired an entire season to four episodes. the ratings are down because people like me work at night and have to record it and watch it later. either that or they are too stupid to wrap their minds around something like time travel. either way, the show rocks. and lasts night episode was perfection.
Comment by uh huh — February 29, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
Absolutely excellent episode, the best this season. I am now at the stage where I want to go forward in time to get all of the next episodes and seasons and sit and watch them back to back. Anyway, another DVR wacther so add me to the ratings.
Comment by Pete Wellard — February 29, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
So did he get is memory back in the end, he didn’t semmed phased when she told him she had spoken to Charlie?
Comment by Pete again — February 29, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
He got his memory back, was waiting for him to say Sayid and then i knew it was all good. He kinda had to connect the dots with Penny. Then everything fell into place. I guess Desmond should wait to go back to the island until someone figures out how to get on those darn coordinates.
Comment by Dan — February 29, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
I have to think that it has more to do with people not wanting to think too much. The standard ‘there’s never any answers’ seems to frustrate people and it really is, in fact, the underlying appeal of the show to me and most of you. Real life can’t be summed up in neat little half hour episodes like a sitcom. Life is full of many questions and few answers and people can’t seem to deal with that.
Comment by Danny — February 29, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
It’s got everything to do with casual viewers being bewildered by the fact that the love triangle B.S. isn’t front and center. TPTB have been cramming every S4 ep thus far full of information. It’s also four seasons in to the show: there’s a crap of a lot going on plus a ton of crap being revealed that requires understanding of previous plot points, and so it just ain’t possible to tune that stuff out any longer if you’re only watching for the sexcapades.
Hey, whatever. It was inevitable. They’ve got the show secured through the end. The regular Lost viewers are probably less suggestible anyway; ABC can stock the uhr-sheeple-centric ads in the slots for crap like Dancing with the Stars and that new reality show about married couples’ bedroom secrets.
Comment by Richard Lennox — February 29, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Hey folks lets not forget the writers strike ended. Remember how Lost was hyped up as the only new thing on tv for about 2 plus months until 4.1 aired? Of course that will explain the huge 16 million viewers and then the slow decline as other newer shows come out. I can guarantee Lost has a higher repeat and web-viewing than most shows on tv today. I know I watch every episode twice to see if I missed anything.
Comment by blutoshmooto — February 29, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
Im with Danny 100% on this one. People seem to drop out of Lost because it gets complicated for them. Well it can seem to be complicated sometimes but man the show is so well done that its still great to go trough all of this stuff.
Lost for me is the dang best T.V Series i have ever watched. And ill be there through all the six seasons hehehe! =)
Comment by Sw0rDMaN — February 29, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
redundant? are you kidding. every episode has been completely different. plus you just compaired an entire season to four episodes. the ratings are down because people like me work at night and have to record it and watch it later. either that or they are too stupid to wrap their minds around something like time travel. either way, the show rocks. and lasts night episode was perfection.
Posted By uh huh
ok yes they have twists at the end i’ll give you that but compare these past two season to the first. in the first seasonyou never new what an episode was going to be about whether it be an episode about the monster, claire being kidnapped, locke and boone making a discovery, etc. In recent episodes, while we may not no about a few twists we pretty much get the general idea of what is going to happen. I believe the producers let people down after last seasons last few episodes. There was such a build up getting to know the secrets of the island and jacob and then the producers threw everything in a completely different direction. While it is unrealistic to expect them to tell us everything, the show has not explored many of the key mysteries that makes the show great. Another reason no one has touched on-juliet, ben, and locke became crucial to the show last year along with richard and the other others, we have not heard a word spoken of the others, locke and ben are barely on, and juliet has had about ten lines tops the entire season.
Comment by matt — February 29, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
and by the way uh huh if you want to you can look it it up around the web , its not just those four, the rest of these 8 are all about the oceanic 6 and its pretty damn obvious who the “unknown” people are. lost has a diverse base of viewers and when the show becomes to focus on one topic it turns off many viewers.
Comment by matt — February 29, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
Lost is a perfect example of masterful “storytelling”, an hour each week that tells you absolutely NOTHING about what is going on and yet you feel you have experienced something in the end. This episode marked a first for Lost: Someone (Jack) actually ASKED what was going on, and I could not believe my eyes, the questionee (Faraday) actually ANSWERED that question! I about fell out of my chair! Up till now, at no time during any of the long treks across the island, when they had an Other in captivity, when they were held captive, at NO time has anyone ever asked anyone else what was going on and got an answer in return. It is the one totally maddening thing about this show that is absolutely unbelievable and would never happen in a real-world situation.
Comment by Glenn — March 1, 2008 @ 4:54 am
The American TV audience is just dumb. It amazes me how so many people can watch so much bad television.
Comment by Jason — March 1, 2008 @ 7:05 am
Richard Lennox’s reference to ’sheeple’ was a descriptive word for all those millions of people who watch inane reality shows, that I had not heard before. I have a new word ’sheeple’, I love it, fits perfectly.
Comment by cdb — March 1, 2008 @ 8:14 am
Glad you enjoy the vocabulary expanson, cdb, but don’t give me *too* much credit. It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Comment by Richard Lennox — March 1, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Show is awful, it’s lost what made it so mysterious and wish they would end this season with remaining answers. Very similar what happened to X-files at the end, just poor.
Comment by Dan — March 1, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Personally, I don’t really care how few are watching. They have negotiated and contracted for 48 episodes for the last three seasons, and they have the story planned out. I don’t think it’s going off the air before it’s scheduled to. Yah, I wish there were more people into it because it’s fun to talk about-everyone has their own ever-changing theory (except me-I’ve been standing behind my theory on the whole thing from season one until last week when I read about the clone theory-almost has me veering…..
). But at the same time, it’s fun to be in-the-know while many people are missing out on a very cool show.
Comment by Mark — March 1, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
There are some who dont want to leave the island and some who do.The show always made us think to much.I watch online the next day….so I can rewatch instantly(cheaper than time travel)
Comment by KS — March 1, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Check out itunes’ top downloaded episodes. The constant is #1. Every time a new LOST ep comes out, it is at the top of the iTunes charts! lots of people download the show the day after!!!
Comment by KUchi — March 1, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
kuchi, brings up an excellent point. Lost eps are 4 of the top 10 current most downloaded shows on itunes.
Comment by shawn — March 1, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
>
Great reply! You truly embiggened yourself by not taking credit for ’sheeple’.
Comment by PPG — March 2, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Maybe the fact that you can catch episodes for free on “On Demand” or on ABC’s website are convincing people it’s okay to go to bed at a decent hour and wrap their minds around Lost when they’re fresh-headed the next morning?? I teach HS math, and every Friday I drive extra-fast to work so I can bounce ideas off of my physics coworkers… I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!
Comment by snowsurfgirl — March 2, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
OK, Firsty, it’s my favorite episode ever. I need to get DVD’s and see all I’ve missed, but this story, even separate from the long-term tale, had quite an impact on me.
Second, I think that this episode is all about why Desmond’s name is Hume. I’d forgotten that until this episode (during which they said his last name several times, plus we see it in Faraday’s notebook). So, just to refresh my memory on David Hume, I booked up a bit in Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy:
According to Russell, Hume, in Treatise of Human Nature, in a section called “Of Abstract Ideas,” relates how abstractions (ideas) can not exist unless they are grounded in experience (impressions), and that he repudiates the notion of a knowledge of “Self” except as a bundle of disjointed perceptions in constant flux. The whole bit about Desmond grounding himself with Penny, his “constant,” is what defines his sense of self through time and keeps him sane, and his brain blood from leaking out of his nose.
Russell also claims that the “most important part of the whole Treatise” comes in “Of Knowledge and Probability.” Russell writes “What Hume is concerned with is uncertain knowledge, such as is obtained from empirical data [experiences] by inferences that are not demonstrative. This includes all our knowledge as to the future, and as to unobserved portions of the past and present.”
One other cool thing, then I’ll stop, I promise…I noted that Faraday (the significance of whose has already discussed, of course) in his Oxford lab, says that “Eloise has become unstuck in time…” This comment is clearly an homage to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, which opens with the line “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.” Slaughterhouse is also a temporally disjointed tale, and includes in its cast of characters an alien race, the Tralfamadorans, which “see” in four dimensions…time being the fourth. They can see (and choose to focus on) any instant of their lives, but believe themselves to be incapable of changing any of it. Rather deterministic, but that’s for another time…
Comment by Wu Li — March 3, 2008 @ 7:30 am
I think the big thing is that some shows are created to get big numbers…what will appeal to the most amount of people? Its like hollywood. You create some generic horror movie or romantic comedy and you get big numbers. You then watch art films or foreign films and you find that they dont follow the typical formula.
I find lost is a mix of the two. Trying to appeal to many but in reality its more like an art film in nature and of course wont draw as many people. They wont cancel the show now so i honestly dont care about the ratings.
Comment by Thiger — March 3, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
Hello everyone,
Sorry not really a spoiler here but wanted to reach the spoiler community.
Has anyone tried to stay of the net for a full season? Just curious as I have done so this season until now obviously but it has made watching lost so dang great again. It makes me feel like when I first started watching way back from the two pilot episodes. I was hooked instantly. Then for season 2 i found out about the websites postings and admit i was caught up wanting to know anything and everything as far as spoilers go. It was cool reading up on it but it took away from the show. I made the choice to try to stay of the net this season and have been happily rewarded with one of the best seasons yet. Trust me its been hard staying of the spoilers but well worth it when i do watch the show. Add me as a DVR viewer as well. Point being try to stay of the net for a few eps and you will have to faith in LOST restored if it has fallen off recently.
thanks for your time
Comment by Lostie — March 3, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
This doesn’t take in to account all those viewers downloading torrents and watching VOD. In the UK lost airs at 2200 on a Sunday night which is a crazy time to show it. As we all now have multiple mediums to access TV programmes channel only ratings are not a true reflection of show views.
Is it fair to say that most Lost viewers are more likely to be multi-medium viewers than say American Idol?
Comment by Kieron — March 4, 2008 @ 6:30 am
well matt i hate juliet so i don’t really care. mwahhahahah. no really i can see your point though. each season it about something entirely different, but each season focuses on just one thing the whole time so i can see what youre saying. i still love it though. this season i like a lot because i was never really crazy about the others and juliet and like you said they have pretty much dropped off the face of the planet this season.
Comment by uh huh — March 5, 2008 @ 11:39 am
i’m not exact but the dvr viewer count is usually around 4 million
Comment by matt — March 5, 2008 @ 8:14 pm