Dads was one of the season's worst-reviewed new shows, but that didn't stop a somewhat reasonable audience from showing up for the premiere. It averaged a 2.2 demo on pre-premiere Tuesday, though it faced virtually nothing: a rebroadcast of Iron Man 2 on ABC (1.0 in the 8:00 hour), CBS' NCIS repeat (1.4) and NBC's The Million Second Quiz (1.1). Though its newbie teammate Brooklyn Nine-Nine built by a few ticks at 8:30, Dads was not the weakest comedy of Fox's lineup. It did outrate weakling The Mindy Project (1.9).
WEEK TWO
In week two, the competition onslaught came. CBS got over two points stronger with the premiere of NCIS, and ABC/NBC each added over three points with their respective premieres of Agents of SHIELD and The Voice. And Dads took a huge tumble, dropping 32% to a 1.5. This time, it could only tie Mindy as the two-hour Fox block's weakest program.
PROGNOSIS
I feel pretty much the same way about this show as I did pre-season; that is, of the critically-savaged shows, this one may have the best chance to stick around longer than people think. Raising Hope or another newbie is not a clearly better option (yet), and it may have a chance to pick back up as the competition logjam dies down. I also still have an inkling it might end up getting tried on Sunday after Family Guy (Fox actually already did this with a pilot encore on pre-premiere Sunday). But while it might last the fall, making it all the way to season two seems like a stretch at this level. Cancel.
"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.
