Ratings Progress Report: Will Fox’s ‘Lethal Weapon’ land itself season 2 renewal?

When Fox decided to order “Lethal Weapon” to series, they took what we felt at the time was a rather big chance. The upside for the series was that it could become for them almost what “Hawaii Five-0” is over on CBS, a really fun, high-stakes remake that allows for some opportunities for people to really dive in and enjoy some crazy, action-packed stories. The downside could be “Minority Report,” which turned out to be a high-concept disappointment for Fox last year.

So what made “Lethal Weapon” an early success, especially to the point that Fox gave it a full season? You can say that it’s the performances or the fact that it airs before “Empire,” and maybe both are to an extent true. In the end, though, we’d say that the overall quality and feeling of escapism you get from watching the show are the biggest reasons why it’s got a reasonably good shot at coming back for another batch of episodes.

For more, check out our latest edition of our Ratings Bubble Report series below.

The good news – As of right now, this is one of the strongest-performing scripted dramas of the new season, at least beyond “This Is Us” over on NBC. You’re seeing it average around a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and what’s probably the most impressive thing about that is the consistency here. While the show hasn’t matched the 2.2 it scored during the premiere episode to date, it also remains in the 1.7-2.0 range every single week. Consistency this early is a wonderful thing for a series, given that it shows your network stability and that it can survive a hiatus.

Specifically, “Lethal Weapon” actually improved in its most-recent episode to a 1.8 rating, even though it was off for two weeks because of the World Series before that. Consider this a great sign!

The bad news – Is there really any? Maybe you can say that the show isn’t coming close to matching “Empire,” but given that it airs before the Taraji P. Henson series as opposed to after it, it would be unreasonable to expect that much more. Also, it is closer to that show’s ratings than “Rosewood” was for most of last season.

Outlook – It’s rosy. Given that Fox is struggling on other nights, we’d be willing to say that “Lethal Weapon” is right now their second-most-important drama currently on the air. Maybe that changes later this year, but for now it’s doing great.