The Orville season two premiere drops in viewing numbers, but receives better reviews

The Orville season two premiere drops in viewing numbers, but receives better reviews

0 comments 📅31 December 2018, 21:17

According to Variety, live viewership of Seth MacFarlane’s Fox sci-fi comedy The Orville “fell sharply” in its second season premiere on Sunday in the US, despite the lead-in boost provided from Fox’s American football coverage earlier in the day.

However, it still “delivered a credible number and posted improvements on its first season averages”. The show got a special, Sunday post-NFL sendoff and will relocate this week to its regular Thursday 9pm ET time slot.

It opened to a 1.5 rating/5 share in adults 18-49 and 5.6 million viewers in the Sunday 8 pm time slot, according to Nielsen’s live-same-day ratings. Those numbers will grow once delayed viewing is factored in. In September 2017 “Orville” also launched on a Sunday with a football lead-in to 8.6 million viewers and 2.8 rating in adults 18-49.

On the plus side, The Orville‘s second year start is up 67% in adults 18-49 from the show’s season one finale in December 2017. It’s also up 56% in total viewers over the finale.

However, the season one premiere episode, Old Wounds, has a score of 7.4 on IMDb and the season two premiere episode, Ja’loja, has a rating of 7.6.

So perhaps not as many people have watched it yet, but that’s certainly no indication of its quality.

IndieWire said, “The Orville season two premiere Ja’loja might be the show at its best” and MyM said it was “as perfectly polished as the very best of what we’ve seen so far” – but that review is under embargo until Thursday, January 7, so you’ll wait until then to read the full article. The AV Club said,”The Orville begins its second season with a strong, low-stakes, character-focused episode”.

So, there you have it.

The Orville premieres on Thursday, January 7, 2019 on FOX in the UK at 9pm.

In the US, it’s on Thursday nights at 9pm ET on FOX, plus can be watched on demand on FOXNOW and Hulu. It’s also available on Fox.com in the US. The first season is available to buy on DVD and a season pass can also be purchased from Amazon.

Scott Snowden is MyM’s US Editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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 The Orville, season 2, first trailer
 The Orville Season 2: “In this genre nothing should be off limits”
 The Orville – every episode reviewed
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