“The Orville” just turned on its rocket boosters.
On Thursday, the Seth MacFarlane space dramedy grew its audience by 23.5 percent, compared with its most-recent original episode.
Last night’s 4.2 million total viewers was up from Oct. 13’s 3.4 million. And this Thursday’s 1.2 rating was up 20 percent from the 1.0 the show received among adults 18-49 two weeks ago. The series aired a rerun last week.
“The Orville” has had an interesting first season in terms of Nielsen ratings.
Last month, the freshman show scored broadcast TV’s top drama debut since last year’s “This Is Us” start. That was in large part due to a giant NFL lead-in — a big benefit the series was never meant to keep.
Nine days later, in its regular time slot premiere following “Gotham,” “The Orville” came way back down to Earth. The decline continued from there.
So what went right last night for the “Family Guy” founder’s latest creation? It’s not like “Thursday Night Football” and “Grey’s Anatomy” took the night off.
Quite simply, Fox has been promoting the hell out of “The Orville” during its World Series, which aired over the prior two nights. Clearly, some of those viewers stuck around on the off night — perhaps they were expecting more of the Fall Classic?
Either way, someone better send Joe Buck an Edible Arrangement.
“The Orville” airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Fox. The World Series returns to Fox for Game 3 tonight at 8:20 p.m. ET.