‘Good Doctor’ is good medicine: Winners and losers of fall TV
Cable news viewers might have an appetite for politics, but fans seeking entertainment seem to be turning off Washington dramas. ABC’s Designated Survivor, starring Kiefer Sutherland as a bureaucrat who reluctantly becomes president after a terrorist attack, has seen ratings plunge 35% in its second season. CBS drama Madam Secretary, which stars Tea Leoni as an idealistic secretary of state, is down 18%, according to the latest available Nielsen data, with delayed viewing included. And ABC’s Scandal is down, too, along with other shows. A look at winners and losers of the month-old season:
WINNERS
The Good Doctor. ABC’s medical drama, starring Freddie Highmore as a young physician with autism, is fall’s breakout hit: It’s averaging 17.4 million viewers, has been steady week to week, builds sharply on its Dancing With the Stars lead-in, grows substantially from delayed viewing and was TV’s No. 1 show for the week of Oct. 9.
Young Sheldon. The CBS prequel to The Big Bang Theory is also big, with a big caveat: Its Sept. 25 premiere (22.5 million viewers) is the only episode that has aired. It returns Nov. 2 on a new night, still behind Big Bang.
This is Us. The weepy NBC drama, TV’s buzziest series, is up 20% from this point last fall, averaging 16.9 million viewers. It ranks third among young adults and fifth overall.
Will & Grace. The groundbreaking 1998-2006 comedy about four friends, two of them gay, had a big turnout for its opener. Interest has cooled since then. Still, it’s NBC’s top-rated comedy ( by far) and already has been renewed.
The Gifted. Fox’s Marvel series, set in the X-Men universe, is not a big show. But it has one of the biggest “lifts” from delayed viewing, and it significantly outpaces ABC’s Marvel series, Inhumans, and Fox’s Star Trek homage, The Orville, among fans and critics alike.
LOSERS
Ten Days in the Valley. With a measly 4 million viewers, Kyra Sedgwick’s serialized ABC mystery about a mom whose daughter vanishes never managed to generate interest. It is the lowestrated major-network newcomer.
Me, Myself & I. CBS’s comedy about a man at three different ages, led by Saturday Night Live veteran Bobby Moynihan, figured to be a bigger draw than the network’s critically reviled sitcom
9JKL. But that may change when steady 9JKL loses its Big Bang lead-in next week.
Empire. A massive hit when it premiered in 2015, Fox’s musicindustry soap is down a huge
38%, shedding 5 million viewers since this point last fall.
Bull. Last year’s biggest hit from CBS is down 24%, losing
4.5 million viewers, as time slot competitor This Is Us climbs. It fell from third place to eighth.
Valor. CW’s stab at a military drama, one of three this fall, was a bad fit for the youthful network, even with soapy storylines.