I think Randy is pretty much right. Its Star Wars--as much as people disliked the prequels they still saw them, and they'll venture to check out the new series too. If it was set at the time of the PT I think it would have much less an audience in terms of fans--but this thing will have stormtroopers, star destroyers, probably x-wings and TIE fighters, and from the sounds of things Boba Fett. Its got a lot of OT elements in it. Now--that will draw people to the show, but whther they stay or not is purely up to the quality of the program. With the PT people kept coming back because they knew ahead of time that the story would get better, and there was only two more films after TPM. If the show sucks fans will watch the first three or four episodes and see if it improves and if it doesn't they'll drift away. But if its good it will definitely find an audience. Look at Battlestar Galactica--talk about niche audience, a laughably-remembered 1970's sci-fi series that was dead and forgotten. But they made the new series really good and it attracted a large audience--it was still niche-based in the sci-fi-fan specialty for the most part, but so is Star Trek and the like, and theres nothing wrong with that.

So, really the show could go far. People will tune in for the pilot and first few episodes out of curiosity, but after that its up to the strength of the show itself, and if its actually good then people will continue watching, and it could even rescue the rep of Star Wars in the same way that the new Battlestar Galactica made it okay to be a fan of that series.