Friday ratings roundup: “Inhumans”…what a joke
The show was about as bad as yours truly expected
(Editor’s note: Some tweets in this story were removed as their accounts were suspended. – T.H.)
The only thing worse than watching the Bears Thursday night was the even bigger mess airing on ABC Friday night called Inhumans. And like the Bears, the Inhumans did the television equivalent of not being able to run the ball and throwing four interceptions.
In other words, Bears QB Mike Glennon should have had top billing in this show.
As expected, the two-hour pilot was practically unwatchable, and I feel sorry for the saps who were fleeced out of $20 when they went to an IMAX theater to see this crap. The characters were unlikeable, the plot barely understandable, and the action scenes – playing under bad rock music – were just about as cheesy as they were in any 1960s B-level movie. The best use for this material would be on the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 – the only thing it’s good for.
You knew this ship would be sunk when the show came under intense criticism when the trailer was booed at Comic-Con and has a ridiculously unprepared presentation during the TCA Summer Press Tour.
Not surprisingly, critics hated the show: As of this writing, Inhumans had only a 29 score on Metacritic and a 4 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The user rating on Metacritic was a lowly 3.3.
On Twitter, viewers had a field day blasting the show – many describing it as “a ’90s retread”. Here’s a sampling of responses:
#Inhumans is so terrible '90s tv, they even bring back the mismatched alt-rock which used to ruin action scenes.
— Gillian de Nooijer (@GillianDN) October 1, 2017
#Inhumans weak story, terrible casting, tinpot use of budget and the worst directing I have ever seen. How can #marvel have failed so bad
— Matt Jones (@Mattrj) October 1, 2017
According to Nielsen, Inhumans earned only a 0.9 rating in the adults 18-49 demo and drew just above three million viewers. While the critical and audience drubbing would suggest a quick exit for Inhumans, keep in mind the atmosphere in the media business these days is very unpredictable. Many shows with worst ratings – namely on The CW – get renewed all the time and live ratings aren’t as important as they used to be. Given the ties Marvel have to Disney and ABC – they are corporate cousins, you know – the only way Inhumans gets the quick hook is the series achieves an 0.0 rating and if there’s pressure from affiliates. Neither is likely to happen.
And while Inhumans is only scheduled to run for eight episodes this season, there are reports creator Scott Buck is already planning story arcs for the show’s second season. All of this speaks to the sheer arrogance of television executives and showrunners these days – and you wonder why viewers are heading toward the exits. You’d think network television executives would learn their lessons from their mistakes, like giving us a sequel to Heroes nobody asked for. Buck has essentially become the second coming of Tim Kring.
See you in The T Dog Media TV Hall Of Shame, Inhumans.
Grade: F
Outside of Inhumans, there wasn’t much to talk about or gloat over on Friday night. Following Inhumans, 20/20 finished with a 0.6 adults 18-49 rating. CBS won the evening with its lineup of dramas: MacGyver (0.8), Hawaii Five-O (1.0) and Blue Bloods (1.1). Of note was the growth for Blue Bloods out of the first two hours of CBS’ prime-time lineup. NBC ran a repeat of Law & Order: True Crime (0.5) and a new Dateline (0.9). Fox had Hell’s Kitchen (0.8) and the second-season premiere of The Exorcist (0.5). Can Fox still be considered a broadcast network at this point?
As I said before, the best show on Friday night television is Chicago Tonight: The Week In Review on WTTW with Joel Weisman. And that will not change this season.