The "Every Episode, Every Rating" series takes a look at the highs and lows of a program during its full run. Praise or criticism is in reference to the show's performance in the Nielsen ratings.
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| Photo Credit: Fox |
Sunday nights on Fox have historically been reserved for the 'Animation Domination' block, a two-hour showcase of pop-culture staples and new offerings delivered in a cartoon package. Live-action comedies have joined the ranks every now and then (most notably That '70s Show and Brooklyn Nine-Nine), but the 2019-2020 television season marked a point where animation became Fox's main option for the evening. Duncanville opened in the spring portion of that season with a cushiony timeslot that placed it after The Simpsons and right before Bob's Burgers. Although it appeared to have a great position to succeed, it would have to forfeit that slot soon after.
Winter/Spring 2020: Like many short-lived shows that struggled to find an audience, Duncanville's highest rating came on premiere night. The Amy Poehler sitcom launched with a 0.53 rating in the Adults 18-49 demographic and 1.5 million in total viewership. This placed the series 21% behind its Simpsons lead-in (0.67) and a tier below Bob's Burgers (0.59) and Family Guy (0.64) on that evening. Duncan had a very nice hold in week two (0.52), losing just a hundredth even as Simpsons (0.65) fell by two. But, that was really the best it ever got for the series. A steep decline took place on night three (0.43), and it only slipped further for episode four (0.38). On top of that, the 2020 COVID-19 shutdowns did absolutely nothing to help the series grow, as it did with many others.
The series generally hovered around a 0.4 rating from mid-March to mid-April and barely scraped together 1 million in total viewers. And then it dealt with another blow on April 26 when it slipped below a million in viewership and dropped to a new 18-49 low (0.35). A 0.32 on May 10 was the ugliest it got in season one, but it was able to bounce back on finale night (0.40) to something a little less awful. Despite these underwhelming numbers, Duncanville was only ever a tenth or two below The Simpsons. That speaks more to the decline of Simpsons than it does to the strength of Duncan. The animated sitcom would secure a season two pickup on the Fox network, but it would never have a timeslot as stable as this again.
Spring/Summer 2021: Duncanville's ratings were modest at best in season one, but they became a legitimate eyesore in season two. The series returned over a year after its finale with a one-hour premiere on Sunday, May 23rd. The first of the two episodes (0.30 rating / 0.80 million viewers) aired in the 8:30 slot after the season finale of The Simpsons (0.35 rating / 1.02 million viewers), marking a new series low for the program. That series low was beaten just an hour later when episode two managed an even weaker 0.24 rating at 9:30.
As bad as those numbers were, it only got worse when the program was moved to Monday evenings. Duncan was given the 9:30 p.m. timeslot instead of the post-Hell's Kitchen, 9 p.m. slot that was given to new animated series HouseBroken. HouseBroken (0.28) lost a massive chunk of its Hell's Kitchen lead-in (0.61) on premiere night, and Duncanville (0.23) only dropped further from there. The gap between HouseBroken and Duncan widened some more when Duncan crashed to a pitiful 0.17 rating, and the former dipped to a less terrible 0.26. From there, the series finally rebounded (0.22) and remained deathly stable in the 0.20-0.22 range until it fell below the 0.20 mark again (0.19) on finale night. In the end, Duncanville was down nearly 50% in the Adults 18-49 demographic from an average that was already abysmal. In terms of viewership, no episode in season two even came close to cracking the 1 million mark.
Spring/Summer 2022: Duncanville got another chance to air regularly on Sunday nights in season three, but was exiled to the 7:30 p.m. timeslot for the episodes that aired in May. The premiere (0.18) narrowly avoided new-low territory, but it only took one more episode (0.13) before it dipped to worse numbers. There was a bit of a climb-back from there (0.17-0.19), but it was then tossed in the 9 p.m. hour in June once the in-season Fox toons finished. It crashed on June 5th (0.13/0.12) when back-to-back episodes aired against the NBA Finals but improved some a week later (0.19/0.20). The double-pump strategy was seemingly abandoned for the last two episodes, meaning the series was solely reserved for the 9 p.m. timeslot on June 19 (0.14) and June 26 (0.13). After that, Fox abruptly yanked the series off the air, even though there were still six episodes left in the season three order. The remaining episodes of the canceled comedy were tossed onto Hulu in October 2022, but the series failed to find a platform that was willing to produce new installments.
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| Photo Credit: Fox |
Post-Mortem: It could be argued that Duncanville never got the proper chance to develop a following, but it also never showed any real promise in the slots it occupied. Duncan never got to air in the football-boosted fall months like Bless the Harts or The Great North, but none of those shows took away any benefit from airing post-NFL to begin with. It is baffling that a show featuring the vocal talents of Amy Poehler, Ty Burrell, Rashida Jones, and Wiz Khalifa did not attract more viewers, especially since it had over a year between season one and two to find an audience through streaming. Even more baffling is how Fox renewed the series for season three before season two even aired, only to pull the series off the schedule without even airing the entire order. It certainly could have been worse than a three-season, thirty-nine episode run, but it also could have been much better.
What did you think of this article? Were you a fan of Duncanville? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
