Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The RATINGS Thread - Part 1

[samsnee]

I think the bottom line is, Marvel and Disney's intent was to make a very family friendly show with action and lots of humor and young characters that people could hopefully relate to. Unfortunately, this isn't Spider-man or The Flash, this is SHIELD and there's a certain gravitas that comes with it. SHIELD needed to be a badass, espionage action show with a robust, diverse cast of SHIELD agents doing what they do best and going up against supernatural threats and taking on covert missions. Basically it should have been ABC's version of '24'. Not nearly as dark and violent as '24' but that same idea of a fast paced, action packed show with a serialized format.

I guarantee you if they used that format and had Bobbi, Hunter, Tripplet, Mack, Gonzales and whoever Lucy Lawless' character was in the beginning of the show, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Makes you wonder if they could have done this show on Netflix, would it have gotten the same praises as Daredevil? The one thing that annoys me about network shows is the lame suspenseful build and music right before a commercial. The great thing about the Netflix shows are the episodes flow better. There's no need to try to get viewers to stick around after commercials. They do still end the episodes that way but at least it's only once an episode.

 

[SonOfIvaldi]

What does this show have to do to get decent ratings ? sigh

 

[AgentGojiraRgr]

They need to rebrand/repackage Agents of Shield and call it something else.

It's not hard to conclude that the show has a deadly negative stigma from the first couple episodes of Season One that the general public and people who only watched 5 episodes will keep perpetuating on the Internet.

No matter how good the show gets, most people won't give it another chance.

Time to rebrand/repackage the show as "Marvel's Secret Warriors" or something.
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Lots of true words said on this thread

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

Ratings can pretty much never be affected by the quality of an episode. By definition, they haven't seen the episode to know if it's good or not.

Good point.

At least you are honest. It amazes me how people are in denial about that first season. It really sucked! The second season is leaps and bounds way better! Like an entirely different series!

I don't know about that. The second half of the first season was exceptional. They were stalling for time until Winter Soldier hit and even then there were a couple of really good episodes before that with Deathlok and that Asgardian dude. Meanwhile season 2 ironically had probably the worst episode in the entire series with Cal's Legion of Losers. But now it also has the best episode with the 2hr finale.

But yeah overall season 2 has been much much better.

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

They need to rebrand/repackage Agents of Shield and call it something else.

It's not hard to conclude that the show has a deadly negative stigma from the first couple episodes of Season One that the general public and people who only watched 5 episodes will keep perpetuating on the Internet.

No matter how good the show gets, most people won't give it another chance.

Time to rebrand/repackage the show as "Marvel's Secret Warriors" or something.
___________________________________
Lots of true words said on this thread

Not a bad idea but it's too late for that I think. They should have announced that at the end of Season 2.

 

[Heretic]

Personally, I'd have rebranded the show. I'd be promoting it as a superhero show ASAP. But the talk here is probably right...they are thinking about syndication...so they will let this show limp along until it gets to be syndicated, rather than risking starting over with a new name that might not do better ratings.

 

[Silvermoon]

Ratings can pretty much never be affected by the quality of an episode. By definition, they haven't seen the episode to know if it's good or not. It can be affected by the previous episode's quality, though (although I thought that one was pretty good).

Anything else big going on in the world of television last night that might have affected it?

The only thing I've been able to possibly think of is locations that might have had the show preempted/interrupted due to any coverage of the Amtrak crash.

One thing I also saw someone (I think on another message board) point out. Yes, 1.3 is not necessarily a great rating (though I believe it's still doing really well in that male demographic), but (from what I understand) it maintained that 1.3 rating it's second (9PM Central/10PM Eastern) hour. The average rating for Forever's first season was a 1.1 in that time slot, and had dipped below 1.0 a few times. That third hour is a hard time and one I think ABC has traditionally struggled with. So it being a 2 hour finale and going late might have also had an effect - people may have been more inclined to DVR the entire thing and watch it at a more reasonable hour? Were I not so adamant about watching live, that's probably what I normally would have done. I have to get up very early to get ready for work, so most weekdays I'm headed to bed during the 2nd hour of primetime. Tuesday's I made an exception to stay up an extra hour to watch AOS, a 2 hour finale going into that 3rd timeslot though was hard (and I definitely felt the effects of it yesterday).

Just some additional thoughts. it'll be interesting to see what the DVR ratings end up being for this episode


side note for those interested: The overall average rating and # of viewers for season 2 for Live+SD is about: 1.6 rating/4.5 million viewers

 

[Mike Murdock]

That's a very good point about it being two hours. I almost was in the same boat.

 

[BarryAllen]

What does this show have to do to get decent ratings ? sigh

What Agents of SHIELD needs to boost ratings is have one of its characters show up in the movies, thus 'validating' its existence. It doesn't even have to be a main character. Use someone like Talbot or Lorelei. That would make it feel like the show is in the same universe as the movies.

 

[TheVileOne]

List was in Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron.

 

[BarryAllen]

List was in Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron.

He appeared in the post credits scene first then came to the TV show. So in the eyes of the audience, he is along the same lines as Sam Jackson and Sif (showing up in the movies then in the show). What the show needs is to have someone who originated from the show appear in the movies. I don't think we'll see a major character from the show appear just yet, but someone like General Talbot could show up in Civil War or Lorelei in Thor: Ragnarok.

This would allow the show to feel like in inhabits the same universe, and that it is necessary viewing.

 

[SonOfIvaldi]

What Agents of SHIELD needs to boost ratings is have one of its characters show up in the movies, thus 'validating' its existence. It doesn't even have to be a main character. Use someone like Talbot or Lorelei. That would make it feel like the show is in the same universe as the movies.

Good point, maybe.
I think AoS needs to have well known characters appear on the show - characters the average watcher would know.
Reason: that's my estimated for why Flash does so well. It's an average show but with a well known character.

Maybe you're idea of moving characters from the show to the big screen is the best way to do this.


For now AoS needs to develop
Tremor Girl ( Quake )
Multiple Girl (Ginger Ninja .... Ginja Ninja lol)
Electric Boy (Lincoln)

Let's do their powers properly:
Let's see electric boy generate a force field to stop bullets
Or generate an EMP pulse to take out a computer/robot
OR absorb electricity to become even more powerful for a short time


Multiple girl see a "clone" shot and just generate a new one
of assimilate a "clone" and learn what the clone has just learned
OR use the shared minds of the clones for to telepathically send messages to other clones


Quake (tremors lol) explode a heart or give several people concussions all at once or use her powers to vibrate open a lock

If they do things like that their powers become interesting and moving to the movies more likely IMO

 

[kguillou]

Spider-Woman. Bring in Jessica Drew. That will get people's attention instantly. Have her be a recurring character next season as a super powered vigilante who joins Coulson and Skye's team.

Although Marvel may not be keen on introducing a Spider-powered character before they introduce their Spider-man in the movies.

 

[guy66657]

Spider-Woman. Bring in Jessica Drew. That will get people's attention instantly. Have her be a recurring character next season as a super powered vigilante who joins Coulson and Skye's team.

Although Marvel may not be keen on introducing a Spider-powered character before they introduce their Spider-man in the movies.

YES. YES. YES. JESS NEEDS TO POP UP. Though. I think you could have her pop up in a movie first since Carol is her bestie and HYDRA could use her as a secret weapon. Plus, I mean, she's not related to Spider-Man in ANY WAY. Just in name. The general audience should be smart enough to get that if they lightly explain it in a line. Just like they did in New Avengers. So they could always introduce her a little after Civil War.

 

[Docker2.0]

Honestly, at this point it would make no difference. People thought introducing Mockingbird would have a spike in ratings but it didn't. Sadly, this thing is tagged because of the stubbornness from season one. The best bet is to end it and do an offshoot with a different show. Not saying it's doom but with as great as this season has been and there still hasn't been any growth, there probably never will be.

 

[SonOfIvaldi]

Honestly, at this point it would make no difference. People thought introducing Mockingbird would have a spike in ratings but it didn't. Sadly, this thing is tagged because of the stubbornness from season one. The best bet is to end it and do an offshoot with a different show. Not saying it's doom but with as great as this season has been and there still hasn't been any growth, there probably never will be.

Well its true the first half of season one is a millstone around this shows neck. I checked its IMDB rating - its in the 7's then I removed the first half of season 1 and the rating was ~8.5

This show needs a reboot, maybe a slight name change - AoS Secret Warriors

 

[kguillou]

Marvel needs to allow this show to use more recognizable characters from the comics and and find a new character to be the primary focus of season 3. The general audience does not care about Skye and Coulson sad to say and we need to shift focus. We need a charismatic actor that can carry the show and steal his or her scenes (ala Brandon Routh on Arrow).

You can still keep Skye as an important character but...her story is pretty much done at this point. I think now that they have access to the Spider-Man library the show would do well to exploit it. Get Norman Osborn and make him the big threat (cuz, c'mon, they cant possibly be using him as the baddie in the new movie AGAIN, can they?). Bring in Spider-Woman and make her a regular character. Or maybe have the S.H.I.E.L.D team go against Scorpion or Shocker or some other small time Spidey villain. Imagine if they brought in the Symbiotes!

 

[Mike Murdock]

See, I disagree with that. Maybe at first, the cast didn't have the same selling power, but I think those who watch the show watch it for the characters we do have. People after season one wanted to know what was going to happen to Fitz far more than what happened to Deathlok. The draw of the show was a character original to the movies with no comic connections with Phil Coulson.

 

[Docker2.0]

The draw of the show? No offense but it has steadily been bleeding ratings. You need something to stop the bleeding now. Again, I don't think there's much hope for the show. You are better off just doing a S.W.O.R.D. show because it's going to be hard to win fans again.

 

[SonOfIvaldi]

The draw of the show? No offense but it has steadily been bleeding ratings. You need something to stop the bleeding now. Again, I don't think there's much hope for the show. You are better off just doing a S.W.O.R.D. show because it's going to be hard to win fans again.

The show does seem to have a hole below the water line and is slowly losing ratings, which surprises me as its gotten better and better.
I can only conclude:

1 - this show has been branded poor - because of the first half of season 1
2 - Viewers really want to see superhero action not a procedural that links to marvel


Re point 2 - Flash and Arrow seems to be doing well even though Arrow has been drivel this season.
Flash has been ok, not outstanding, but its doing well in the ratings (given the channel)

I suspect people want to see a mini avengers movie every week. which may not actually be a good thing for the big MCU movies.
I think the show needs to focus more on developing the inhumans and Skyes secret SHIELD force.
Also, it would benefit from someone (a regular) on the TV show appearing in the big MCU movies

 

[Docker2.0]

Honestly it's like doing a fairy tell show without fairies. Look at the response Daredevil is getting. A Marvel show without superheroes is crazy. I mean, they are adding minor guys now but I've said from the jump they should have added some "names" to the show. They have a Blade and Punisher and no plans for them..........use them. I know the show wasn't made for superheroes but to show how SHIELD operates in a world of superheroes but you see how that turned out. I don't know, I really think the show has gotten better but have you ever tried to talk someone into watching this show. First thing they say is they tried and have no plans of watching it again.

 

[kguillou]

I think main thing they need to do is is make the show even more serialized and less procedural. Each episode needs to lead directly into the next. One thing Arrow does really, bizzarly well is it manages to end on a shocking note at the end of each episode which makes you want to watch the next. Even the bad episodes Arrow had this season managed to work in "oh s***!!!" moments at the very end to hook you. Shield needs to use that formula to hook people.

 

[Silvermoon]

Initial numbers are in for the Season 3 premiere (reminder that these could adjust up/down/stay flat when the final ratings are released later today):

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...nts-of-shield-limitless-scream-queens/474004/

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (3x01 "Laws of Nature")
18-49 Rating: 1.7
Viewers (millions): 4.842

 

[famicommander]

That's down from a 2.0 for last season's premiere.

Last season ended up averaging a 1.59 and had a floor of 1.30.

I don't think there's any way that it holds that average. I'm thinking something in the 1.3-1.4 range will be the average this year.

Thankfully for fans of the show, the syndication economics almost guarantee a season four. As long as the ratings don't go fractional season 4 is pretty much a sure thing.

 

[Shakel92]

Well, those are disappointing, until you look at how everybody else did. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.