The Fox network has a major hit on its hands with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Terminator spin-off series which hit screens in the US on Sunday evening with 18.29 million viewers.
To put that into perspective, last September NBC was getting very excited with debut viewing figures of 13.91 million viewers for Bionic Woman. There were mitigating circumstances for Chronicles’ success, though: on Fox it followed on from a major NFL playoff between the Giants and the Cowboys which drew in 37.27 million viewers, and also, with the effects of the writers' strike beginning to impact on schedules, there isn't actually that much else on to watch.
The true success of the show will be whether it can hold onto those viewers in coming weeks (in exactly the way Bionic Woman didn't). But even if its audience halves, that'll still be a good result for a drama on Fox.
