Marvel’s latest TV series, Inhumans, is continuing to lose viewers every week. The show was immediately beset by negative fan reactions back when the first cast photo arrived online and things only intensified as trailers and clips began to drop. As a first for studio, the opening two episodes aired as a feature-length premiere on IMAX screens at the beginning of September and while they didn’t exactly set the world alight, they did earn $2.85 million, which is decent for what it was.
This was followed up by a respectable, if unremarkable, debut on ABC later that same month. In fact, critics were initially hopeful that Inhumans might make it through its terrible press relatively unscathed. Unfortunately, though, the subsequent two episodes have seen ratings drop precipitously.
The third instalment fell a whole million from the prior week to bring it down to 2.75 million viewers, and we’ve now learned that episode four, “Make Way For Medusa,” went down even further, coming in at just 2.3 million. It also scored an unimpressive 0.6 in the key 18-49 demographic, compared to the already lacking 0.9 of the season premiere.
Much was also made recently of how the debut of Fox’s The Gifted beat out Inhumans in its ratings. That series, part of the MCU’s rival X-Men universe, managed to convince 4.9 million to tune in, with a 1.5 demographic share. Inhumans has been described as a poor man’s version of the X-Men, so it’s no surprise that audiences have decided to stick with the original.
It’s fair to say that things aren’t looking too good for the show, then. Rumours have been spreading for weeks now that ABC are losing faith in the production, leading to clashes behind the scenes. They also seem to have rebranded this season of Inhumans as “the complete series,” suggesting they have no plans to renew it for a sophomore run.
Still, it’s too early to write the show off for good at the moment. If ratings continue to fall for the remainder of the eight-episode season though, you can bet that we won’t be making a return visit to Attilan next year.
Inhumans airs on Friday nights on ABC.