Tonight will likely be a decisive moment for The Gifted. If they can prove their massive drop in ratings last week was a fluke due to sports programming, they may be on their way to a renewal. If not…well, it’s not exactly likely that they will be cancelled, but it doesn’t help.

But that has been the biggest concern with The Gifted: there’s just no talk about it. No talk about cancellation. No talk about renewal. No talk about anything official outside of fan reactions. It feels like it is operating on the sidelines entertaining a devote fanbase while other shows take to the forefront. And with the release of a similar show on Hulu, Marvel’s Runaways, The Gifted’s future could be in peril.

That said, there’s still some optimism. TV Series Finale reports that while the numbers did drop, Fox already has an issue with ratings where lower numbers could still be justified for renewal. That said, the show also still sits squarely in the middle of Fox’s programming block, averaging 3.5 million viewers and 1.09 key demographic share. That ranks it at #8 out of their fifteen scripted programs and honestly the top ranked shows only do marginally better when observing the TV landscape.

So what will the future hold? It is unclear, but it has been a fun ride tracking The Gifted this season. Here’s hoping it continues to find success.

Mondays numbers have come in and The Gifted faced an enormous slump in its penultimate episode. The freshman series shrank dramatically to one and half million viewers, over a million fewer than last week’s numbers. What could have caused such a drop?

Well, the CW DC Comics universe premiered their yearly series crossover on Arrow at the same time as The Gifted this week. While the numbers for the crossover events have dropped from previous years, they still garner enough of an audience from their established fan base that many people likely could only justify one superhero show that hour. And they weren’t going to give their time to an untested newcomer.

It didn’t help that the time slot had steeper than usual competition from the other channels. The Gifted has continually suffered under the thumb of the current time slot leader The Voice since its premiere, but now it had two other ratings juggernauts to compete with. The first was the recently moved Superior Donuts, which drew in a significant five million viewership. The biggest, however, was the CMA Country Christmas event on ABC. While this was a one time event and will likely help The Gifted return to higher numbers for its finale, the event drew an enormous eight million viewers that caused significant damage to the show.

It’s very likely The Gifted will stabilize next week if nothing else comes out of the blue, but it was a rough week for the series.

Thanksgiving was uneventful for “The Gifted.” Worse, the show hit a series low in both viewership and demographic ratings. While this wasn’t a relatively huge drop, a 10% decrease in demographic is rather surprising for a show that has maintained a pretty steady average over the weeks. Then again, that average has continued to precipitate each week, so this was just one in a number of drops no matter how incremental.

What was the cause for this? Football, of course. In fact, football dominated all ratings over the holiday week with people home from work. Otherwise, it wasn’t from the other shows. There was some minor schedule shuffling but nothing dramatically competitive in The Gifted’s time slot. One would think that a holiday week would give a show like that a boost with people getting time off work. The fact it didn’t might say something about the show’s fan base.

What does this mean for the show’s future? As usual, it’s a huge question mark. While sites like TvByTheNumbers and TvLine say it is likely to be renewed, it barely makes a stir in the news, it has a fairly contained fan impact and reviews continue to range from good to average without any particularly glowing remarks. Comicbook.com among other sites feel this may be cause for concern if the show can’t show some sign of growth leading to its finale.

Reports have been split on “The Gifted’s” ratings performance this week. On the one hand, TvByTheNumbers reported the show as having a tenth of a point increase in its demo rating as part of their headline. On the other hand, Tv Line exclaims that it is the worst audience ratings in the season’s run. So there seems to be a debate on how much the show is “successful,” or at least if it will affect its renewal chances, among certain outlets.

That being said, Ad Age published a new article on Nov. 13th covering the top rated scripted shows across all network television that put things in a broader perspective. Of the twenty-five shows listed and accounted for Nielsen Currency Data, The Gifted ranks #10 overall. Of the new shows that have premiered this season, that makes it the third highest rated show behind Young Sheldon and The Good Doctor. It also boasts solid number in the C3 (ratings plus three days) and C7 (ratings plus seven days) categories, with 1.7 and 1.9 respectively. Going off the live plus same day rating of 1.4, “The Gifted” matches or outperforms in its bump to C3 and C7 ratings with the shows listed as #6 through #9.

While Ad Age lists it as a “bubble show” for renewal, they do note that its live ratings are still sufficient enough to justify a renewal but its C7 ratings would make it a top ten show worth renewing to most channels. We shall see.

The Gifted saw a slight dip in ratings and demo this week, but it wasn’t a huge shock. The show has maintained a steady viewership over the last few weeks, which is interesting considering the changing nature of its competition across the networks.

The biggest competition and hindrance to The Gifted’s ratings have been its placement right in the middle of two competition shows: Dancing with the Stars and The Voice. Both of these shows can reach around or close to ten million viewers a week and it is unlikely those viewers would be swayed to change channels to watch The Gifted halfway through.

The real reason for this week’s particular dip though has been the shifting around of CBS’s schedule to place Superior Donuts at the same time slot as The Gifted. The Gifted originally had very little direct competition in the 9 PM slot, but Superior Donuts’s placement and its 5.39 million viewers this week definitely hurt The Gifted even if just a little. It seems that if viewers had a choice between a serialized comic book drama and a comedy set in a donuts shop, the donuts would win.

Not all the shows in the same time slot pose a threat though. CW’s Valor runs at the same time, but has been getting slaughtered in ratings with barely over a million viewers. Though it getting moved could only benefit The Gifted in the future…

Over a week ago, broadcastingcable.com published a report on the viewer and advertiser data surround Fox’s “The Gifted.” Seeing that the show had an increase in viewers and demographic shares this week, there must be something that is working.

In conjunction with Inscape.tv and iSpot.tv, it has been noted that the second to second viewership of each episode increases each week and as the episode progresses, with dips in viewings only dropping when people change channels to avoid commercials (ABC is the most popular channel they switch to during this).

The products spending the most to advertise during these episodes are mobile devices and automobiles, with Verizon and Lincoln as the most prominent brands advertised. Of these commercials though, the commercials viewers are less likely to look away from are Geico ads. The single most expensive advertisement aired on the program was a trailer for “Blade Runner 2049.”

Concerning social media emotional reaction, 64.9% of the posts express positive emotions including “love” (29.9%), “excited” (18.2%) and “enjoy” (16.8%). It is worth mentioning that a notable amount of people have used “crazy” to describe the show (5.6%). The character Polaris is the most mentioned aspect about the show itself, specifically how viewers find her beautiful.

How will these stats change over the whole season? We shall see.

The Gifted has been maintaining a steady audience of over three million over the last few weeks, though while the decline week to week is growing smaller, there is declining viewership. Should The Gifted be allowed to have a second season?

It will depend on a few things. Based on the feedback from the last episode, with a plot revelation that changed the direct narrative of the show, IGN says that this might be what keeps The Gifted thriving where previous shows fail. That said, others have continued criticism that this may be making the show aimless if they need to keep changing their central conceit to keep things interesting.

TVbythenumbers’s cancel bear predictions errs in The Gifted’s favor for renewal too. Out of the shows premiering this season, they ranked The Gifted as fourth most likely to be renewed by their network.

What will happen as a result? Where is The Gifted’s future? We shall see.

Week three of “The Gifted” has seen the show go through an expected dip in ratings following the moderate success in the pilot. However, it is notable that while the overall viewership is down by more than 300,000, the demographic rating has only dropped by 0.1. Could this be a sign that the show is attracting enough of a dedicated fan base to keep viewing week to week?

The mixed critical reception doesn’t make things any clearer. Much like the pilot and the second episode, the third episode has been met with divisive critical opinion. IGN gave the episode a seven out of ten, where they admit while this is in their opinion the show’s ‘first uneven episode,’ their biggest issues were that some of the main plot threads felt forced. The TV Club gave it a C+, citing the episode didn’t really ‘go anywhere and that the development for the mutant character is less interesting than those with powers. However, even detractors have praised the show’s consistent technical craft and there are those who feel the show is still going strong. Among them are Collider, who gave the episode a four out of five saying that while there were some cliche narrative devices, they weren’t particularly bothered by the familiarity as they enjoyed the content well enough.

Despite this, it’s hard to tell the future of the show. It hasn’t quite penetrated pop culture like other premieres this season have, so we shall see what happens.

Tonight, “The Gifted” will air its second episode. This time, however, it will be riding on the coattails of the return of CW’s “Supergirl.” With the hotly anticipated premiere of its third season, “Supergirl” may possibly steal “The Gifted’s” thunder, leaving audiences ‘superhero’d out’ by the time the second episode airs.

“The Gifted” also continues to face stiff competition as it continues to air in the middle of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and NBC’s “The Voice.” Similarly, it will debut alongside the second episode for the second season of CBS’s “Kevin Can Wait,” which may likely have a broader appeal than Fox’s family drama. While “The Gifted’s” premiere showed potential with solid ratings and reviews, it will be a make it or break period for the superhero show over the next few weeks.

Having said that, Fox has continued to let underperforming shows like “Gotham” air for multiple seasons as that show continued to build a cult fan base and even secure an Emmy win this year. So it is possible that if “The Gifted” can justify even decent numbers, it may weather the storm for a second season.

The Gifted premiered Monday on Fox and the ratings are in. The pilot episode, directed by Bryan Singer (X-Men) and written by series creator Matt Nix (Burn Notice), debuted higher than anticipated with 4.85 million viewers with a 1.5 rating in the key demo. While the general consensus for this has been summed up as “decent” and “solid, not spectacular” ratings, as reported by TvByTheNumbers and CBR respectively, it was also noted that compared to Marvel’s InHumans, which premiered Friday September 29th, it outpaced it by around a million viewers.

Reviews for the show that continue to accumulate as of this post could also be described as decent. The show currently sits at a 74% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes out of 34 reviews, with a 76% positive rating from audiences. Critics seem divided on the show, with some like USA Today and the New York Times praising it as a “smart and exhilarating” show, while websites like The Wrap have deemed it a “bland origin story.”

Time will tell if the show progresses in quality to maintain its stable ratings without Lucifer’s season premiere building a safe lead-in.