Monday, June 24, 2019

The Breakdown: Fox Tuesday in 2018-19 (The Gifted, MasterChef Junior, Lethal Weapon and more!)




It's time for a journey through the Fox Tuesday schedule in 2018-19...


fall

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2017-18Lethal WeaponThe MickBrooklyn Nine-Nine79
927261
66
2018-19The GiftedLethal Weapon72 (-9%)
71 (-23%)73 (+10%)
VsAvg-27%-29%-28%
Rank15/1815/1815/18

Fox filled its fall 2018 with a couple middling returnee dramas. After an OK premiere night, The Gifted fell to way behind the year-ago Lethal Weapon, while the relocated Lethal was an improvement on last year's comedy hour.

winter

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2017-18Lethal WeaponLA to VegasThe Mick84
987764
70
2018-19Lethal WeaponThe Gifted64 (-24%)
77 (-22%)50 (-28%)
VsAvg-61%-66%-63%
Rank16/1818/1818/18

After the new year, Fox flipped the two dramas into the timeslots they perhaps should've had from the beginning. But the damage had already been done, and this move barely helped Lethal Weapon and utterly tanked The Gifted.

spring

Year8:008:309:009:30Avg
2017-18Lethal WeaponLA to VegasNew Girl65
745854
56
2018-19MasterChef JuniorMental Samurai67 (+3%)
78 (+6%)55 (-1%)
VsAvg-53%-51%-52%
Rank13/1816/1814/18

Fox had its best year-to-year trends of the season went it went unscripted in the spring, as old reliable MasterChef Junior edged past last year's Lethal Weapon ratings and Mental Samurai was in line with the comedies.

Rating the Ratings

NameLoAvgHiy2yPlusLabelPlusy2yResults
The Gifted0.40.590.9-41%63flop-32%detail
MasterChef Junior*0.70.740.8-7%78marginal+7%detail
Lethal Weapon0.60.710.8-28%74marginal-17%detail
Mental Samurai0.40.530.755flopdetail

The Gifted: Like with Lethal Weapon, you can't really look at the full season and make much of a claim that it got a timeslot downgrade; if anything, getting to air after local programming in the fall might have held it up just enough to avoid getting flunked out. 63 Plus would be one of the highest-rated seasons to ever get an F, so I can't quite go there. (I could be wrong but I think the only one higher was season 5 of Glee, which took a significantly larger y2y drop.)  Grade: D-.

MasterChef Junior: This show is a really nice exercise every year in how to grade shows that move to or from Friday! This year, it went from spring Fridays to spring Tuesdays. It gained 7% in raw Plus but True Plus says it was down some. Grade: B-.

Lethal Weapon: Airing at 9/8c after The Gifted was basically an act of sabotage, and it worked; after restoring it to 8/7c and getting an apples-to-apples comparison for the winter, the declines were still really bad. You can't really argue it had a timeslot downgrade on the whole, though, since season two had to air into May and this one wrapped by the end of February. So this goes down in the Suburgatory ranks as one of the more tragic flame-outs on record, considering what immense promise it showed in season one. Grade: C-.

Mental Samurai: Exact same Plus as last year's Showtime At the Apollo which I gave a C, but this one had a significantly better lead-in situation. At least it did better than the winter episodes of The Gifted? 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.

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