While last week’s premiere performance was irrefutably soft, justifiable hope existed that FOX’s “Wayward Pines” would buck the typical trend and rise in week two.
It did.
Thursday’s episode drew a 1.2 adults 18-49 rating with 4.58 million viewers. Both numbers best those of last week’s broadcast, which delivered a 1.0 with 3.76 million viewers.
This week’s adults 18-49 rating gave FOX a victory (among the major broadcast networks) in the 9-10PM timeslot.
In addition to airing against the season finales of “Scandal” and “The Blacklist,” last week’s “Wayward Pines” premiere was bottlenecked by the fact that it had been previously available via on-demand networks. Since neither of those circumstances was going to hamper the show’s second week performance, it had a very real chance of rising.
A gain, in fact, was the only way it could prove the validity of those excuses.
Given the dearth of competition and profile of the “Wayward Pines” cast, a 1.2 rating is far from a strong performance. It makes no guarantee that the show will avoid falling back down in the coming weeks and certainly offers no assurance of a long-term future.
It does, however, show that last week’s underwhelming premiere performance was not indicative of the series’ full potential.