For all the hate, bad word of mouth and horrible reviews that Marvel’s Inhumans earned itself in the weeks leading up to its television premiere, the ratings weren’t all that bad in the end.
Now, the show was far from a hit and whether or not it’ll get a second season is still very much up in the air, but if there’s a silver lining in all of this, it’s that the studio’s latest small screen effort didn’t completely bomb last night. THR is telling us that Inhumans posted a soft 0.9 in the key 18-49 demo during its first hour, before dropping to 0.8 for the final hour. In terms of viewers, 3.94 million sat through the opening episode, while only 3.63 million stuck around for the next.
Again, these are far from solid numbers, but to put things into perspective, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. only debuted to 3.44 million last season, though it scored a 1.1 in that same demo. Then again, Inhumans also had a Friday night slot, which isn’t exactly an easy time to perform well in. Not to mention that there was also a lot of negative buzz surrounding the show even before it hit television thanks to the IMAX premiere earlier in September.
Of course, given that S.H.I.E.L.D. only just escaped cancellation last year, we shouldn’t take the fact that Inhumans beat it to be a sign that it’ll be around for the long haul. Make no mistake, the show has a lot of work to do if it’s going to earn itself a second season. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll be able to pull through. Or maybe it’ll only get worse from here. Who knows?
Time will tell, but for those select few who actually enjoyed Inhumans, or enjoyed it as much as possible given the cheap looking effects, dull design and slow narrative, there’s at least a silver lining here.
