Oh Empire...where to begin. On the bright side, it is still doing better in W18-34 than A18-49 in raw ratings, which is very impressive. But it's just looking more and more like the downfall of Glee. This season, it fell 38%. All three of the shows on FOX that had worse trends than that got canceled. Its 15th episode was particularly ugly, down 50% from the previous year. The fact that it started at a 4.2 and then went on a streak of low 2s when it returned from its hiatus just isn't promising. Of course, it's still one of television's biggest shows, but the Glee comparisons truly are scary. Hopefully a Season 6 doesn't air on Friday and hit a 0.6. And considering its lead-in was stronger than last season, and it had Star to promote its return, it really had no excuse. Perhaps Shots Fired hurt it in the spring, but Empire is the type of show that never really was affected by lead-ins. Here's to hoping it stabilizes next season.
Grade: D+