Are Midnight, Texas season 2 odds rising? Early signs suggest so
We had stated yesterday that in order for the show to boost its season 2 renewal odds, it would need to surge up after spending the past couple of weeks on a slow decline — not only did it improve for this past episode, but it did actually generate some of the best ratings of the entire season.
Last night’s new episode, even after final adjustments (we waited for that just in case there were preemptions bumping it up somewhere in the country), generated a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic. That puts the show on par with the premiere, and it easily won its timeslot at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. It drew in total 3.37 million viewers to go along with it — that’s not as good of a performance as the premiere, but it topples every other episode we’ve seen in between.
While this is something to shout about in celebration if you are a fan of the show, we wouldn’t go so far as to scream from the rooftops just yet that it’s going to be renewed by NBC. It has to keep the ratings up! If the show generates a 0.8-0.9 the rest of the summer, we don’t know how you don’t bring it back in some capacity. There aren’t any summer shows anymore (at least in the scripted realm) generating more than a 1.0 consistently, and this show managed this without an enormous promotional campaign and with subject matter (vampires and all sorts of other supernatural stuff) that has started to fade in popularity over the past few years. The popularity of author Charlaine Harris has certainly boosted its appeal, and we also feel like the need for escapism and some crazy drama this summer also helps. Network TV really is in need of more scripted programming, and what we’d like to see here is a renewal both for this show and also The Night Shift, which has suffered as of late because of multiple local network preemptions because of NFL football.
There is no guarantee that you’re going to get a season 2 renewal anytime over the next few weeks, alas — NBC could wait until after the finale or longer to renew the show, depending on what some of the DVR ratings they get in are. The thing that we’d say to them is this: They can cancel the show and bring in something new, but are the odds really that high that it will perform better? They may as well keep going with this show, given that they’ve found something that works. In general, kudos to NBC for consistently delivering some of the best summer programming on the Big Four this summer.
Want to see what’s coming next on Midnight, Texas?
If you head over to the link here, you can see right now an extended preview for what’s coming. (Photo: NBC.)