ABC's new Titanic miniseries concluded on Sunday evening (April 15, 2012), though it drew just 4.2 million viewers for its final hour, with a rating of 0.9 (tied with rivals that included crime drama repeats).
Though the real Titanic took around 2.5 hours to sink in 1912, Abc needed around three hours in total to record the most disappointing ratings of the weekend, according to the New York Post. The show, that cost $16 million to make, was soundly beaten by a NASCAR race (the Samsung Mobile 500) during its opening episode on Saturday and things didn't get much better on Sunday. The four-hour miniseries, written by the Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, appeared to fall flat with viewers because of its narrative style (It jumped back and forth in time to several characters, meaning the ship hit the iceberg in each of the four episodes). The New York Times said of the show, "At least in the early stages, the series is quite entertaining. But over all, the mini-series suffers from defensive storytelling; it's a narrative driven in splintered directions less by inspiration than by avoidance", while TV Guide said, "Even good actors like Linus Roache (the Earl of Manton, as starchy as his collars), Toby Jones (as his obsequious lawyer) and Maria Doyle Kennedy (as Jones' harpy wife) fail to rise above these contrived circumstances".
Despite the criticism, Fellowes is likely to enjoy further success with the third season of Downton Abbey, which was announced earlier this year.