Monday, June 25, 2018

The Breakdown: Fox Tuesday in 2017-18 (Lethal Weapon, LA to Vegas, The Mick and more!)




It's time for a journey through the Fox Tuesday schedule in 2017-18...


fall

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2016-17Brooklyn Nine-NineNew GirlScream Queens63
787550
77
2017-18Lethal WeaponThe MickBrooklyn Nine-Nine79 (+25%)
92 (+20%)72 (+45%)61 (+22%)
66 (+33%)
VsAvg-7%-37%-22%
Rank9/1715/1714/17

Fox saw some major improvement on Tuesday night as it traded out season two of Scream Queens for season two of Lethal Weapon. But the comedy hour after Lethal was nothing to write home about, with Brooklyn a particular disappointment in the fall.

winter

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2016-17New GirlThe MickBones74
818665
83
2017-18Lethal WeaponLA to VegasThe Mick84 (+13%)
98 (+17%)77 (+17%)64 (-2%)
70 (+8%)
VsAvg-51%-54%-52%
Rank13/1715/1713/17

The Tuesday lineup got a bit of a winter bounce, but the growth was not as pronounced since Fox improved with Bones and The Mick in the year-ago winter. Newbie LA to Vegas stepped in at 9/8c to keep the flow looking about the same.

spring

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2016-17Brooklyn Nine-NineThe MickPrison Break69
546779
60
2017-18Lethal WeaponLA to VegasNew Girl65 (-7%)
74 (+22%)58 (-26%)54 (-32%)
56 (-29%)
VsAvg-57%-52%-55%
Rank13/1715/1714/17

Though the lineup faded a lot after DST, and the 9/8c comedies got compared with a decent-rated Prison Break revival, Lethal Weapon had its biggest growth relative to the 8/7c comedies in the spring. A short-order final season of New Girl provided absolutely no spark.

Rating the Ratings

NameLoAvgHiy2yPlusLabelPlusy2yResults
Lethal Weapon0.70.981.2-37%90marginal-30%detail
LA to Vegas0.50.731.167flopdetail
The Mick0.60.730.9-35%66flop-27%detail
Brooklyn Nine-Nine*0.60.740.9-13%68flop-3%detail
New Girl*0.50.590.7-37%54flop-30%detail

Lethal Weapon: This was a sneakily huge timeslot downgrade: going from very little drama competition to the toughest CBS drama (plus The Voice and Roseanne), no benefit from a massive lead-out like Empire, and it also had to air in April and May unlike last year. It still probably shouldn't have dropped quite this much, but it looked like it might be just another part of the pack with Lucifer/The Gifted/Gotham/The Orville early in the fall. Ultimately, it separated from that crowd by a good bit, and that's why it's coming back even without Clayne Crawford. Unfortunately, that loss, the Disney deal and a placement after The Gifted really put a damper on its long term prospects. Grade: C+.

LA to Vegas: It was not particularly distinguishable from any of the other live-action comedies that cycled through this hour all season. It seems Fox was trying to find a way to make it work, as its cancellation came well after the upfronts, but ending on a 0.5 was a bitter final impression. Grade: C.

The Mick: Again, it was fairly indistinguishable from the other comedies, but that still makes it a much weaker offering than season one of The Mick, a show that was frequently building on its lead-ins. It could've survived if Fox had a different plan for its comedy direction, but at these levels I don't think it'll be a big loss. Grade: C-.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The story of this one is incomplete without seeing how much it grew on Sunday between The Simpsons and Family Guy. I don't think any of these other comedies would've done that, but it doesn't wipe away the fact that it was really looking bad in the fall. The truth of this show is probably somewhere in between those two vastly different performances. It'll be interesting to see how it fits in on NBC. Grade: B-.

New Girl: This was a really sad way for an important Fox comedy to come to an end, tacked on as an unwatched afterthrought at the end of the season. If it had aired any time other than the very late spring I'd have doled out the F here, but since the entire season aired a full year after the entirety of last season I think I can get away with a Grade: D-.

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.

Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for Fox Tuesday.

No comments:

Post a Comment

© SpottedRatings.com 2009-2022. All Rights Reserved.