Season Premiere Ratings: On Tuesday, FOX’s X-Men spin-off series The Gifted returned for its second season on a new night and posted a 0.9 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 2.6 million total viewers. That doesn’t count as a great start and it is below the 1.0 rating average that the show had in its first season. But with the ratings down across the board, I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bad start either. We will have to see how FOX is doing in general this season, and this show tended to land in the Top 25 based on delayed viewing last year most weeks. If the show holds around middling same day numbers and continues to pickup viewers through delayed viewing, it could be okay, especially since it is owned by FOX. How it tracks over the next few weeks versus the rest of the FOX schedule show give us a better idea of where it stands, and fans may want to take to the social networks to get the word out about this show.
Second Season Hopes: Netflix has changed the Facebook page for The Defenders to the somewhat broad “Multiple Universes One Home”, leading many to speculate that there would not be second season of that show. But Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb has responded to the backlash this has caused saying that a second season could still happen in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:
All we’ve ever said is that there are no plans right now [to do more]. It doesn’t mean that it’s off the table. And it doesn’t mean that it even has to be with the original characters that were in the first Defenders.
He went on to say:
There are lots of Avengers, and through that, you should be able to ascertain that there may be lots of Defenders. No one at any time referred to them as “The Defenders” — they didn’t wear a little “D” on their belts, and they didn’t go to a building that had a big “Defenders” [sign] in the air. They were four mismatched heroes who were joined by a lot of the other heroes that are in the stories that we do on Netflix, but that was that particular story.
This certainly is not a strong endorsement of a second season, but according to Loeb it could still happen. I theorize that the rights for the Marvel shows could go over to the Disney streaming service at some point (that’s sheer speculation, though) and if a second season of The Defenders happens it will be at that venue. But for now, fans just have to wait for upcoming development announcements and settle with the solo series.
The Fall season is upon us and will be bringing over forty new and returning sci fi and fantasy television shows. You can see our full preview of the coming season at this link. And be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site throughout the season for the latest ratings results and status updates for your favorite shows.
