When it comes to movies, it seems as if Marvel can do no wrong. Even the company’s weaker films, such as Iron Man 2 or Avengers 2, did well at the box office and didn’t endangered the future of the franchise. The world of TV, on the other hand, is more of a mixed bag. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s ratings have never set the world on fire, despite good reviews. Unfortunately, it appears that Marvel’s latest effort, Inhumans, is set to follow a similar pattern.
Screen Rant has reported that the show premiered to similar ratings as the season 4 premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel’s latest property earned 0.9 in the 18-49 demographic for the first hour, but that number dropped 0.8 in the second hour. In terms of raw numbers, 3.94 million people watched the show in the first hour compared to the 3.63 million who watched it in the second hour.
These numbers aren’t awful, but odds are that viewership will only decline from this point. The fact that people stopped watching during the second hour indicates that the show might have trouble maintaining audience interest over the long term. Lack of audience interest was always going to be a hurdle for Inhumans. The series simply isn’t as popular as the likes of Iron Man or the X-Men and, despite a promising Comic-Con reveal, Marvel hasn’t done a great job of convincing audiences to care about the Inhumans.
Of course, all of this could have been overcome by a strong pilot, but the response to Inhumans has been lukewarm at best. The series first premiered in IMAX earlier this year, but reviewers panned it as one of Marvel’s weakest offerings and the response to the show’s TV debut have been little better. The show currently holds a 4 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes though the site is factoring in both IMAX and TV reviews.
None of this means that Inhumans can’t turn things around after a rocky start. After all, DC’s Arrow had plenty of issues in its first few episodes and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. really only found its niche after the Captain America: Winter Soldier tie-in, but Marvel still has to convince audiences to care about the Inhumans, and that’s where it seem to be failing. Not only that, but it appears that ABC also lacks faith in the show, as Friday night is generally considered one of the worst nights for a TV shows ratings.
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