Home News

The Flash Season 5 Hits Series-Low Ratings, Is Cancellation Coming?

The future of the Arrowverse is up in the air right now as though all four DC TV shows were renewed for another season, the shape of The CW's shared universe is expected to change beyond that. Arrow is confirmed to end after its shortened eighth run with it rumored that Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl could also join it in the near future. The Flash is the only series that seemed secure, but a recent dip in ratings now has fans worried.

The Flash Season 4

The future of the Arrowverse is up in the air right now as though all four DC TV shows were renewed for another season, the shape of The CW’s shared universe is expected to change beyond that. Arrow is confirmed to end after its shortened eighth run with it rumored that Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl could also join it in the near future. The Flash is the only series that seemed secure, but a recent dip in ratings now has fans worried.

Recommended Videos

Last Tuesday’s episode, “Failure is an Orphan,” ended up having a pretty ironic title, as it’ll go down as the least-watched episode of the series to date. Cancelled Sci-Fi looked at the figures and reported that season 5’s 16th episode, which aired on March 12th, only managed a 0.5 rating in the key deomographic of 18-49 year olds. In total, 1.55 million caught the installment, which isn’t that much more that the million who watched the corresponding episode of Arrow.

That being said, there’s certainly no need to worry about Barry Allen in the short-term, as The Flash has already got a sixth season and it’s perfectly ordinary for shows that have been running for about half a decade to see some sort of drop-off in viewers over time. Still, it has traditionally been more popular than the rest of the Arrowverse by a significant margin, a margin that’s now shrunk considerably.

Flash fans are generally in agreement that season 5 perhaps hasn’t capitalized on its potential as much as it should have, so that’s one reason why viewers might be speeding away from the show. A big attention-grabbing event’s coming this fall, though, in the form of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, which should give a much-needed boost to the different corners of the Arrowverse.

Until then, though, The Flash is on a month’s break and will return with the hotly-anticipated 18th episode “Godspeed” on April 16th. Will you be tuning in for it though? Be sure to let us know down below.