First Two Weeks, Allen Gregory

ALLEN GREGORY (FOX)

WEEK ONE
The premiere of Allen Gregory pulled a 2.4 demo for Fox. That tied the episode of The Cleveland Show on the same night as Fox's lowest-rated episode of animation this sesason, and even worse was that it took a huge drop from a well above average episode of The Simpsons. The Treehouse of Horror episode got a season-high 4.0 demo, meaning Allen Gregory lost 40% on premiere night.

WEEK TWO
Week two brought a 13% drop to a 2.1 demo. It also saw its Simpsons lead-in decline to a 3.7, but that means the show's retention dropped from 60% to 57%. That's much worse retention than most of Fox's second tier of animated shows (The Cleveland Show, American Dad!, Bob's Burgers).

PROGNOSIS
You have to give credit to Fox for giving Allen Gregory the best possible chance; they basically ensured Allen Gregory would get well-above average Simpsons lead-ins in each of its first three airings with the Treehouse episode and then two late-afternoon national NFL games on Fox. At least through the first two, it's completely squandered those lead-ins, but we won't know till week four what this show gets when The Simpsons is closer to 3.0 than 4.0. Considering the show has just a seven-episode order, even if it's down toward a 1.5 at that point, it may well just air out the whole short order. But it definitely looks right now like this show's performing at a level even below the animation "second tier," and Fox has Napoleon Dynamite and a recently extended Bob's Burgers waiting in the wings. Even as someone who's in favor of more non-Seth MacFarlane voices on Fox Sunday, I see no real chance for a second season here.

"First Two Weeks" is my look at... the first two weeks of a new scripted broadcast show's ratings. I also line all of these numbers up to do an objective analysis in what I call "the system."