Watch My Friend Wil’s New Show Tonight at 10pm
Posted on May 27, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 36 Comments
It is called The Wil Wheaton Project, and it’s on Syfy, and it’s at 10pm tonight (which is Tuesday, May 27th). Wil will be making amusing and snarky observations on science fiction and nerd culture, and speaking as someone who knows him personally, he’s pretty excellent at that. I’m been looking forward to this for a while.
If you can, please watch it live — we want the eyeball-trackers at Syfy to be happy with how it does. I’m proud of my friend and I want his show to do well. Eyeballs will help. Thanks.
Is there anything else we should be doing? Emailing our joy after we watch it? Being sure to do something so our eyeballs are tracked?
I have enjoyed his recurring role on The Big Bang Theory. My wife and I were happy to see him pick up another project and hope that it does well.
Thanks for reminding me so I can add it to my DVR list.
I have “cut the cord”, as the cool kids say, and no longer have cable television. Is there any way for me to legally watch it, especially in a way that lets SyFy count me?
I saw the run-through he did in Hollywood a couple of weeks ago, and even in its rough state, it was hilarious. Funny and satirical without being mean-spirited – it felt like a Daily Show for Us. If I still had cable I’d be watching it.
Blaise, I believe it will be on Hulu.com after airing.
How did you meet Wil? It must have been at a convention, but was it just star trek. Was this before your old man’s war fame?
When he was on Star Trek you were “Just” a college student.
Cecilia:
We actually met through a mutual friend.
I’m hopeful, but concerned that he’s way too good for PSI-FI or CY-FY or whatever it is they call themselves these days..
I’m also hoping he’s got at least a bit of Harlan Ellison in him.
Do the networks still use the Nielsen system or with digital cable do they actually know what everybody is watching? Yes, I know your intent is to drum up support for Wil’s show, but technically does it even matter unless you are one of those Nielsen houses?
Already have it set to record.
I was going to ask the same thing. I plan to watch it but how will Syfy know I’m watching it?
Jen–
It’s not exactly public, but it looks like all networks still subscribe to Nielsen’s traditional rating system, that involves random sampling and detailed follow-up for a statistically representative subset of the sample. But most networks also subscribe to various products from the cable operators which give them much more detailed data, including DVR information, exact timing of channel changes, etc, but aggregated into various statistically bits that make it more difficult.
SyFy is owned by Universal, which is owned by Comcast, so for a big chunk of the cable market in the US, SyFy will have tracking data of how many people down to the eyeball watched via the cable network, recorded by Comcast-owned DVRs, or watch on-demand.
So short answer is that if all of JS’s reader watch the show, it would definitely make it back t to SyFy, especially for Comcast viewers.
SyFy streams their shows directly from their website, so if you don’t have cable, you should be able to see it there. The traffic to their site and their page for the show specifically would also be useful data when they’re looking at the show’s total impact.
Seconding a lot of what DPMaine mentioned, there are many ways networks can measure whether or not someone’s watching or interested in a show (Twitter’s becoming a much more valuable asset for measuring engagement), but traditional tracking methods like Nielsen numbers are still a prized currency. If you can watch it live in it’s normal broadcast slot, that’s the best way to support it.
10PM on a worknight means there’s no chance of my catching it live, but it’ll be on the DVR, ready to add to the live+7, fwiw.
Watching live is important if you have a Nielsen box on your tv. If you don’t, your live eyeballs aren’t counted. We used to have a box–it was kind of fun, for a while, to know we had a small role in the numbers being reported. Then we got over it.
Sadly, this is only available in the US… So I’m going to do my darnedest to watch it in a trackable way via my US vpn connection from up here in Canadia (likely through Hulu, as long as it’s not required that I have a Hulu+ subscription)
So excited for WilW!!! Hope this is a huge success for him! Almost makes me with I had TV – I’ll have to watch via one of the other ways they’re providing. Thanks for the insights re: Nielsen ratings, @ DPMaine.
Is there a hashtag for Wil’s show yet? Someone post it here so we can know how to show him (and the network) our Twitter-love. :-)
I’ll put the TV on in the background so he gets eyeballs and then watch it commercial free later. Props to Wil. this looks like it could be fun.
Good, it doesn’t conflict with “Inside Amy Schumer”, which I find hilarious! >8^)
Wil is the first thing in ten years that’s made me wish I had a television. <3
Tell him to pray that the hockey game doesn’t go to overtime.
OK. Wil, I know you’re going to read this. I’m no showbiz expert, and I really liked the show. I love the concept of the show, and hope it sticks around for a long time.
That said, are skinny ties back “in”? Do I need to go shopping?
I didn’t see it. SyFy Now apparently requires you to have a “TV Provider” in order for you to watch shows live online. Not only do I not have a “TV Provider”, but my local cable company/ISP (Time Warner) wasn’t on the list of TV Providers they have a relationship with. I also doubt that having an internet-only account with TWC would have been enough.
Hulu didn’t have it either, although I should check back. They did seem to be interested in a TV provider as well, so I don’t know how that’ll work out.
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Can’t believe that I missed this for a mere marathon…
Oh, well, that’s what Netflix and stuff is for!
This Wheaton fellow is really going places. A Star Trek cameo next? (Well, if Mick Fleetwood and Stephen Hawking(!) could do it … )
Forgot all about this last night. Hopefully there will be re-runs later in the week. IMO the best thing Wil ever did was that episode from a few years back on one of the CSI-type shows where he was the really really creepy guy. (at least, I think it was him in that episode)
I watched it live. For Wil’s sake, because I like his blog, after about fifteen minutes I needed to make a phone call but I left it playing but with the sound muted. (Which might actually matter – it’s said that TiVo sells data to market research firms.) I didn’t feel the need to go back and see what I missed – the first fifteen minutes were definitely not my cup of tea, but I suspect I’m in the minority on that given the popularity of similar shows.
There were some clever bits during the show, and Wil has an engaging presence. But I fear I’m not the right demographic for that much frenetic activity.
We watched it live AND DVR’d it (does that count twice?). Because WilW is cool and we like shows that make us laugh. Loved the concept of The Soup meets Tosh 2.0 for nerds. That said, we did not laugh as much as we hoped we would … lots of groans but not so many laughs.
If Will is looking for feedback, this viewer & wife would like to see fewer puns and more snark in future episodes. That Billy Corgan picture comparison was great — more of that type of humor please!
* Disclaimer: Outside of 18-49 demographic so who really cares what we think anyway?
John, I hope you didn’t write any of the #$% Wil was spouting. It was pretty bad. If he wants to do a AOTS type show, he better get a Olivia Munn clone.
It is better than Sharknado, but not by much.
I’m not sure if it’s on Hulu or not–Hulu was unable to find the show for me when I was looking this morning. Either way, I don’t think I will be able to watch it. Oh well, as usual it’s my own fault for not buying cable.
I laughed here and there, but not as many times as I would have liked.
I hope that the premier episode, being the premier episode, contained more jokes about Wil, and about Wil biting the SyFy hand that feeds him, than can be expected in future episodes.
It’s unfortunate that his show is on siffy. I stop watching them after they cancelled Farscape.
I do not have cable, or a provider, and yet I am watching the show on Syfy.com right now. It asked who my provider was, I picked a random one, it took me to a login screen. I hit the Back button and the video started playing anyway. It was as simple as that.
Yay, it’s on Hulu now. Watched it this morning and was entertained.
Yup, Hulu has both episodes 1 and 2 now. I assume they’ll have the others shortly after they come out (episode 2 originally aired 4 days ago). They don’t ask you for a TV provider to watch it there, and you don’t need Hulu+ either.
I put on the first episode tonight, and got as far as the second commercial break before concluding it’s not for me, but others might like it. (If you’ve got kids in the house, though, do note that the TV-14 rating is there for a reason.)