Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the most anticipated new show of the fall, and it showed. Big-time. The show opened on premiere Tuesday with a 4.7 demo, a number that will likely wind up being the largest self-starting premiere in A18-49+ history. And it pulled this off against brutal competition: The Voice (4.1 in the 8:00 hour), the NCIS premiere (3.6) and the Fox comedies (1.5/1.8).
WEEK TWO
But much of that interest was just a one-time thing. SHIELD dropped a steep 30% in week two to a 3.3, dropping behind both The Voice and NCIS. Still, at a 3.3 it was the third-biggest show on ABC in week two, trailing just Modern Family (4.2) and the premiere of Scandal (3.6).
PROGNOSIS
That drop is pretty worrying, and it'll make week three verrry interesting. But a 3.3 leading off Tuesday is still sensational for ABC, and still well above what I thought it'd average for the season. It seems almost impossible it could drop so much in week three that I'd actually shift over to a cancel call if I deferred. Renew it is.
"First Two Weeks" is an ongoing experiment to see how often a new scripted show's fate can be predicted by the very earliest data. Here are the picks and lineups for every show this season.
8 comments:
I think a defer here could be beneficial seeing as the drop in week 3 will actually be telling so we will have new information. I would defer. However ,my guess if I had to pick now would still be renewal. I love the show personally, hope it holds on.
The drop is troublesome for something this high profile. And if it comes again tonight with The Voice shrinking to an hour for The Biggest Loser, then ABC's got real problems. But considering ABC's myriad of other problems - 10:00 pm Tuesday, Sundays, and perhaps 8:00 pm Thursday if Once: Wonderland flops - it feels like a safe renew at this point.
I'll be interested in seeing if Thor: The Dark World (November 2013) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 2014) coming out this TV season provides SHIELD with a mini-boost.
I think You should take cancellation bear route here.
Is is beating other rookies? Duh.
Can it go as down as 2.0ish Castle/Nashville level? I seriously doubt.
Can some midseason drama rate better? Never say never, but...
Then clearly Renew.
It's got a long, long way to fall. Could it fall that far? Flashforward, etc. tells us it is possible, but with the state of the rest of the newbie slate, I think this gets a face-saving renewal even if it doesn't deserve one. And I don't see it not deserving one at this point.
I think this would be a nice game to play along with when we don't have Questions.
I will defer. If tonight's number starts with a 3, I will say it gets renewed. If a 2, it means another 10%+ drop. If it's getting high-2s now, what will it be getting in the spring? Low-2s? Terra Nova debuted at 3.1, and held that number the next week, but it was getting low-2s when it got axed. Of course, we don't know if SHIELD has the same budget concerns that TN did, but it likely had the same level of expectation.
Renew.
It would have to be a nice game to play along with when we DO have Questions, as the peak periods for both tend to overlap (and both will die down a lot in frequency by the end of next week).
But maybe next year I will introduce a formal game aspect to this. That would give this whole practice more of a reason to exist.
I'll stick with Renew.
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