The Orville season 2 episode 12 ratings slide slightly, but by how much?

The Orville is clearly one of those shows we’re monitoring closely in terms of the ratings, and for good reason! This is, after all, a show we’re eager to get back on the air for a season 3 … even though there’s hardly a guarantee of it. We are writing here about an expensive genre show that isn’t killing it in the numbers, and on a network in Fox that is shedding hours of original programming like it is a dog with a ton of fur who has an affinity for rolling around on the furniture.

For last night’s new episode, The Orville had a larger challenge than it’s had in some time — airing without a new episode of Gotham before it, meaning that it had no real lead-in to speak of and beyond that, there may have been a crew of people out there unsure as to whether or not it is going to air because the Batman prequel was not on. Yet, it did at least do a reasonably good job of maintaining the same 18-49 demo rating (0.6) that it had a good few weeks ago when the show last came on the air.

If you missed our video reaction to last night’s The Orville, be sure to check that out in the video below! For some other insight on the show, remember to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube or to take a look at our full The Orville playlist! You don’t want to miss any other updates we’ve got on the show.

It’s only when you look at the show’s total-viewer figures that things start to become a tad bit more troubling. This episode drew just over 2.56 million viewers, its lowest overall output of the season. As we’re trying to mention here, there are some legitimate reasons for it … but that does not make it any less sad.

What we’re hoping at the moment is that Fox is looking at the total package with this show, one that stretches far beyond just live ratings and includes DVR numbers and internet streams. Plus, we still maintain that this show is going to get more and more attention as word of mouth spreads over how good the past season and a half has been. We almost compare The Orville in our mind to Agents of SHIELD, another show that had a huge start in the ratings but because the writers hadn’t quite figured it out just yet, a lot of people ended up bailing and not coming back as soon as it became legitimately good. You can easily answer this by saying “well, shouldn’t the show have been good immediately?”, but sometimes that’s difficult. Television, especially network television, is a lot about adjusting for what viewers like about it. With a show like this, it’s even more challenging since Seth MacFarlane almost had to realize that it was okay for audiences to perceive him in another way beyond just the guy who makes screwball comedy and voices various characters on Family Guy. We do think that viewers realize that now, but we wish that this perception was there almost right away.

Want to preview what’s next on The Orville?

Then you can do that by heading over to the link here right now!

What do you think about the new The Orville season 2 episode 12 ratings, and are you still hopeful for a season 3? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments. (Photo: Fox.)