Surprisingly, Weird Loners has managed to stay fairly consistent in their numbers. The week of its premiere, it had a 0.7 rating with 1.91 million viewers from 18-49. This past week, it maintained its 0.7 rating with a slight decrease to 1.72 million viewers from 18-49. That’s pretty good given the reviews it got!
I know I have given Weird Loners a lot of grief, but I think it’s important to establish some factors that have contributed to the demise of this show…
- Competition:
- Not going to lie, its competition is pretty weak. The only real “competitor” is also a new show — One Big Happy — which has also been struggling to find a loyal audience. That said, Ellen has been promoting this show like no other (makes sense given that she is an executive producer on it). I can imagine the fan-base for Ellen may be more impressive than that of New Girl (which then leads into Weird Loners).
- Time Slot:
- It’s never easy to excel on a Tuesday night at 9:30pm c. I would argue that anywhere from 6-9:30 pm is a difficult time slot to fill. It’s, at the very least, a ‘transitional’ part of everyone’s day. The fact that it starts in the middle of the hour — at 9:30pm c — as opposed to 9pm c, adds an additional stress to this show. I can tell you, personally, that I would never watch a show in them middle of an hour for a half-hour if I didn’t like the show before it (New Girl).
- Difference in Writing:
- As mentioned earlier, New Girl leads into Weird Loners. I think the network made this decision because they thought that both shows were very similar. Well, folks, these shows are NOT two peas in a pod. In fact, there is such a stark difference with regards to writing style and content that it would be unfair to clump these two shows together under the umbrella term “sitcom.”
As we near the season’s end, I will be curious to see if this show is able to make a comeback or if it will continue to descend to its imminent cancelation. Thanks for reading!
