‘The Fall’ season 2: Jamie Dornan’s ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ power fails to increase ratings

It is not often that we are insanely curious about how a BBC Two series is faring in the ratings, but the presence of Jamie Dornan on “The Fall” at least made us moderately curious. After all, he has been turned into a global star almost overnight by his casting in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie, and it was inevitable to question whether or not this publicity would end up boosting the show.

Well, we now have an answer, and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The series, which also stars “X-Files” alum Gillian Anderson, scored 2.5 million viewers Thursday for its premiere. That is still a solid number for the network, and this remains one of their most-successful shows to date.

However, the figure is down the premiere audience (3.5 million) and its subsequent finale (3.6 million) by a fairly wide margin. It is always difficult to retain viewers, especially in this age where there are so many other options that can be tried out.

We do wonder already whether or not there is even any hope about there being a third season of “The Fall,” based mostly on the successes of its two stars elsewhere. Anderson is a regular on the third season of “Hannibal,” and it feels like sooner or later all of these complications would make it hard to pin down and film more episodes.

Then again, these stars could opt to do a “Sherlock,” and merely commit to making more installments whenever they have the time to do so.

What do you think about the ratings for “The Fall’s” premiere?