Journalist Mary McNamara has reported on the OurStargate Forum (thread here) that SciFi Channel received record ratings for Friday night’s episode of Stargate: SG-1, 8.05 “Icon”, which featured the Daniel Jackson character in a story of global war. The overnight (preliminary) rating was 2.2, representing 2.8 million people. This is the highest rated regular episode of SG-1 ever, topped only by the premier of Season 8, 8.01 “New Order”. Also for the first time, Stargate: SG-1 beat Stargate:Atlantis, though by a small margin, with Atlantis earning a 2.17.
So far the ratings for Season 8 are as follows:
9 July: 8.01 “New Order” — 2.43
23 July: 8.03 “Lockdown” — 1.97
30 July: 8.04 “Zero Hour” — 2.16
6 August: 8.05 “Icon” — 2.2
For Atlantis they are:
16 July: 1.01 “Rising” — 3.2
23 July: 1.03 “Hide and Seek” — 2.47
30 July: 1.04 “38 Minutes” — 2.45
6 August: 1.05 “Suspicion” — 2.17
The average rating for SG-1 in Season 7 was 1.77, so these ratings represent a 20% increase over last year. The number of viewers will have increased even more, since SciFi channel is in more homes, so every ratings point represents more people. No surprisingly, Mary reported that SciFi is very happy with these figures.
Thanks to Mary McNamara and OurStargate Forum for providing the ratings news. Congratulations to writer Damian Kindler, director Peter Woeste, producers Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, and Michael Shanks for scoring big with “Icon,” whose opening scene was one of the best ever of a Stargate episode, in my humble opinion 😉