Ratings: The Passage finale falls; The Enemy Within rises
The ratings for The Passage finale are officially in and, given that there was no new episode of The Resident before it, we can’t say that we’re all that surprised by what we saw.
Let’s look at the specific numbers here — the final episode of the first season generated a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and the clear bad news from that is that this marks the show’s worst performance of the season. Yet, like we said, it was on without much of a lead-in and more than that, it was on opposite the first part of The Bachelor finale (which generated a 2.2 rating, up significantly versus the week prior) as well as The Voice and Magnum PI.
As we noted in our ratings piece yesterday, the numbers for The Passage have been solid, perhaps even better than we expected coming into the season. It’s out-performing some other Fox shows including The Gifted, Lethal Weapon, The Orville, and some others on the schedule. Nonetheless, this is no guarantee; we’ll see what Fox decides with the show’s future when we get around to May. It would be great to get news that is a little more firm beforehand, but television isn’t built on idealism. It’s built instead on finances and making sure that you’re getting the right return on the investment. Fox has to look at things from a business standpoint and patience may be a part of that.
When it comes to some other ratings news worth sharing, why not celebrate the finale for The Good Doctor, which generated a 1.4 rating? This marks one of its best performances from the season! Beyond that, why not also cheer a little bit for The Enemy Within? While a 1.0 rating isn’t s rating worth trumpets and high-fives, it’s far from a struggle and far from a reason to be sad. It marks a slight improvement over episode 2 — given our theory that a show starts to figure out its audience at around week 3 or week 4, this is a sign of hope for the show’s season 2 future. If it can hold firm around here, there’s at least a good opportunity that it could come back for more.
If there is a case to be made against a renewal (not that we like to state said case), it’s that NBC’s midseason Monday shows don’t tend to fare all that well in their second go-around. Take a look at Taken, which embarked on a journey towards cancellation last year. Meanwhile, Good Girls is averaging a 0.7 rating for its second season right now, down more than 30% from its season 1 average. While Good Girls is an entertaining show, the performance of these midseason shows in season 2 signal one of two things.
1. It is extremely hard for freshman series to keep their viewership after a long hiatus.
2. It is also extremely hard for a midseason show to succeed without a great lead-in — take, for example, The Voice. This is one of the best lead-ins on television, time and time again, when it comes to retention.
What did you watch on television Monday night? Sound off now in the attached comments and remember to stay tuned for more.