Ratings: The Good Doctor, Young Sheldon big winners; The Brave okay at best
The big winners – It has to be some of the new programming, given that Young Sheldon premiered to a 3.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and kept almost the entirety of its lead-in from The Big Bang Theory (which in turn improved from its previous premiere to a 3.9). We anticipated it getting off to a great start, but this strong was a surprise, even to us. It will likely fall now, given that the next new episode of the series is not expected to air until November. Also, there are some people who won’t watch the prequel just because they didn’t like one thing or another about the show.
Meanwhile, over on ABC The Good Doctor had one of the best starts for a new 10:00 p.m. Eastern drama in a long time, scoring a 2.4 rating and almost 12 million viewers. It out-performed its lead-in Dancing with the Stars, and with House alum David Shore on board here as executive producer we have every reason to believe that this is a show that will run on the air for many years to come.
Down the middle – The Voice returned with a solid-but-unspectacular 2.6, another reminder that this is a franchise slowly losing some of its steam. It doesn’t help that this is effectively the same thing every year and the winners never really do much in the industry.
Meanwhile, over on CBS Me, Myself, & I premiered to an okay 1.7 rating, which would be good in the event that it sticks around there. The season 2 premiere of Kevin Can Wait, which was at the center of a lot of controversy over the removal of Erinn Hayes (Donna) from the cast, generated a 2.3.
The disappointments – Whatever happened to Scorpion? The season 3 premiere of the show generated a measly 1.0 rating, a sign that The Good Doctor ate up a good chunk of its audience. We do also think that Scorpion needs to take some bigger risks in order to get some of its audience back. We’re also going to The Brave over on NBC on this list given that its ratings are probably a disappointment — getting just a 1.4 rating in the post-The Voice timeslot never bodes well, and we think that military-themed shows scoring disappointing numbers is probably a trend you’ll continue to see for some time. As of right now, SEAL Team is the one new show in this vein we have some confidence in.
Tonight, we’ll see what unfolds with the ratings given that there is the premiere of This Is Us alongside Bull, NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, and a wide array of other programming across the board.
What do you think of the Good Doctor premiere ratings, and some other programming last night?
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