Agatha All Along Ratings Are Worse Than The Acolyte’s
Marvel’s newest series is not the win Disney+ desperately needs. The streaming service is still reeling from the embarrassment of The Acolyte, the Star Wars series from Leslye Headland that bombed so hard Disney quickly put the kibosh on any hopes of a second season, not that many people seemed to hope for one (though some who didn’t watch it were outraged). But they may get an even bigger pie to the face with Agatha All Along, Marvel’s WandaVision spin-off starring Kathryn Hahn as wicked witch Agatha Harkness. According to Variety, the Agatha All Along ratings are trailing those of The Acolyte, which doesn’t look good for the new series. Of course, being the faithful servants they are, Variety spins it as a win for Agatha All Along, saying that the show’s ratings are “roughly on par” with The Acolyte and Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The opening of #AgathaAllAlong appears to be roughly on par with that of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” which debuted with 13.3 million views in six days, as well as “The Acolyte,” the Star Wars series that hit 11.1 million views in five days. https://t.co/UnNt63tG5l
— Variety (@Variety) September 26, 2024
Even if that were true, Agatha being on par with a show that was canceled a month after its season – which turned out to be its series – finale is not exactly a good sign for the Marvel show’s prospects. But that’s still obfuscating the truth; the series premiere of Agatha All Along has 9.3 million views “in its first seven days of streaming,” and Variety compares that to the 11.1 million views the first episode of The Acolyte in its first five days, which is not only more viewers but a shorter time frame. Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which Variety also uses as an “on par” example for Agatha, had 13.3 million viewers in six days (which doesn’t sound all that great either, comparatively speaking), while Ahsoka, which Variety admits Agatha lags behind, had 14 million views in five days – which was considered disappointing.
The general sense of failure for Disney+’s output may be the real takeaway from this. The Agatha All Along ratings are bad, but this show isn’t the streaming service’s only dud, as those numbers show. Little seems to be going right for Disney+, and with rumors of an upcoming price hike, how many people are going to stick around for a bunch of shows they’re not watching? The main selling point for Disney+ is the library of classic (and acquired) Disney movies and TV shows, but the films tend to be widely owned, so the appeal is limited. And the perverted elephant in the room is the social programming and sexuality Disney is putting into their content aimed at kids, which is even worse because it’s being hidden from parents. Once Mom and Dad find out that Disney can no longer be trusted with their kids, subscriptions get canceled. There have been a few recent hits for the company, like Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2, both of which made a point of staying away from Disney’s obsession with identity politics – or, in Deadpool & Wolverine’s case, outright mocked it. But with Disney+ flailing, the parks in a seeming downward spiral, and the next big Star Wars movie in limbo, Disney feels like a dying brand.
As for Agatha All Along, I don’t think anyone is particularly surprised by its weak numbers. Since its announcement, the most asked question about the series was, “Who is this for?” Agatha Harkness was a bizarre character to turn into a lead, and gearing the show towards middle-aged wine women – a demographic that probably isn’t all that interested in Marvel – was even stranger. The writing was so clearly on the wall that Disney has been billing this as a miniseries, which the stars echoed at the premiere; this is probably why Variety is so comfortable shilling for it: since it definitively won’t be back, they can spin the numbers without having an Acolyte-style cancellation announcement to make them look like idiots. The show is, unsurprisingly, not very good, although, surprisingly, not terrible, either, but I think I’m in the minority on the second part. But Marvel’s Disney+ shows have historically gotten worse as they’ve gone along, and with the lack of enthusiasm for the first three entries – my reviews of which you can read here – that 9.3 million number will probably be viewed as the good old days before long. There are rumors of a sea change at Marvel, and since they came from Chris Gore and have been reported elsewhere, I think they can be reasonably believed, but Agatha All Along is destined for a “What the Hell Were They Thinking” retrospective at some point.
Let us know what you think of the Agatha All Along ratings in the comments!
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Comments (4)
Right. They could do something cool, fun, and spooky with witches. If they’re traveling down this winding road in a dark magic dimension, have them face increasingly creepy things as they traverse it, as opposed to going to a beach house and drinking wine, which is literally what they do in the third episode. I get what they’re doing, but come on; at least try to make it interesting instead of one long wine mom in-joke.
One other thing is that I heard Daisey Ridley say something about how fans hate women or something like that. I expect the same to be said by this crew, and after the She-Hulk debacle.
I don’t recall Lynda Carter or Xena or Daisy Duke or Olivia Newton-Jon or Cybil Shephard, Melissa Joan Hart, Jennifer Love Hewitt, etc. ever complaining about fans hating women.
Yeah, I saw that too. If that Rey movie falls apart (which I don’t think it will), they can blame the fans again.
They are marketing it to women and gays. Leaves male fans of Marvel out of the picture.
They are utterly fixated on witches and, when I hear about witches, I think of eerie and spooky things, but they manage to make it domesticated.
Same thing happened with Ghostbusters. They can’t manage to tell a good ghost story anymore? I thought those things were tried and true. Through the ages, I thought storytellers were able to nail ghost stories and yet, they miss the mark on that these days, too. They managed to box check Goosebumps to death, too. Wanted to check it out, and just couldn’t take it. Will just stick to books.
It’s fine. Everything is feminized. The worst thing about it though is that they are so inept, that they cannot even target simps, so we do not get to see attractive women in any of these movies, shows or games. Where TF is Sydney Sweeney? Duh! It’s like they hate ratings and money.
Worst part of it all though, is that this is really made for fans of The View. I feel bad for women that spend their whole lives on the couch. Couch larvae is what Terrence McKenna called them.