Disappointment as Farscape fails to grab more viewers after the hiatus.

Farscape Fans hoping that the show would increase its rating after the annual hiatus, and thus save it from cancellation, have been dealt a crushing blow.

Despite increased publicity generated by the cancellation news, the episode Kansas achieved a Nielson rating of 1.34, far short of the 2.0 hoped for. Each Nielsen point represents 1% of all US TV owning homes - just over a million people.

Fans have been quick to point out that there has been little on-air promotion for the new run of episodes. Farscape has also been moved to a new time-slot and is up against a slew of new shows, all factors that could account for the drop in ratings.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Farscape continues to increase its ratings. 1.6 million viewers tuned in to Kansas, but by the next week the figure was up to 2.2 million for Terra Firma.