Directly leading out of ABC's massive Agents of SHIELD premiere was new comedy The Goldbergs, which posted a very respectable 3.1 demo in its premiere. That was down about a third from SHIELD's 4.7 rating in the 8:30 half-hour. It had about as much competition as SHIELD, facing off against NBC's The Voice (5.1 in the half hour) as well as NCIS: Los Angeles (3.1 at 9:00) and New Girl (2.1).
WEEK TWO
SHIELD's 30% drop caused reverberations throughout the rest of ABC's all-newbie Tuesday, but The Goldbergs actually didn't drop any more steeply than did SHIELD; its 2.2 demo in week two was down 29%, which was again about two thirds of what SHIELD delivered.
PROGNOSIS
A 2.2 out of a 3.3 is really not that bad; last season's NBC comedy Go On was in this general vicinity with a lead-in north of 4.0 in the second half of last fall, and it got its full season. Suburgatory got renewed after hanging low 2's post-Modern Family for most of the season. So I expect The Goldbergs will get a full season along those same lines unless something really crazy happens in the next week or two. But not even Go On got a season two, and SHIELD is much more of a wild card in the coming weeks than was The Voice. So I'm going to Defer this one and see if SHIELD leveled off somewhat last night.
WEEK THREE/PROGNOSIS
In week three, SHIELD dropped another 12% to a 2.9, and The Goldbergs dropped another 14% to a 1.9. This was almost exactly what I thought was going to happen; I was hoping for purposes of this prediction that SHIELD would either stay at 3.0+ or be a bit more alarming. So I think I have to default to the direction I was slightly leaning after week two, which was Renew. I think the Go On comparison is fairly apt here, and the tiebreaker for me here is that unlike Go On, the lead-out for The Goldbergs won't have to go on a months-long hiatus. So there may not be any real opportunity for this show to get "exposed"; it could easily air pretty much the whole season after original SHIELD. And I think SHIELD is close enough to leveling off that it keeps The Goldbergs from getting really ugly.
"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.
