Oh, That's Why 'The Acolyte' Hasn't Been Renewed Yet

By Dustin Rowles | TV | July 23, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | July 23, 2024 |

I am not the typical Star Wars fan, and by that, I mean, I’m a casual viewer at best. I liked Andor, quit The Mandalorian an episode into The Book of Boba Fett, couldn’t make it through the first episode of the Obi-Wan series, and didn’t even bother with Ahsoka.

Naturally, I really liked The Acolyte. The reception, best I can tell, has been mixed, but I’m with Mike and Manny Jacinto’s arms. I assumed that if someone as detached from the Star Wars universe as I am liked it, it must be huge, right?

If it is, why hasn’t Disney+ renewed it for a second season yet? It’s clearly built for a second season, if not more.

The answer, alas, may lie in the numbers, or rather: the absence of them. Ratings for streaming television are notoriously difficult to find. However, Nielsen does provide them. It’s only for the top ten shows, and they are delayed by a month, but they do exist. Here are the top ten original streaming shows for the week of the fourth episode of The Acolyte:

Note that The Acolyte is not there, which means it’s faring worse than something called King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch, which was watched for 288 million minutes. And it’s not that Nielsen doesn’t track it. The Acolyte did appear during its premiere week at number 7 with 488 million minutes viewed. The next week, it fell to 370 million minutes. Viewership clearly continued to drop between weeks three and four, so much so that it landed outside of the top ten.

Now, there are caveats, namely that The Acolyte only had four episodes, each around 35 minutes long. It obviously will take more viewers than an hour-long series with 30 episodes to break into the top ten. But it’s also not a runaway hit, falling well below Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, a Hulu documentary that only has three episodes. For an expensive Star Wars series on Disney+, there’s an expectation that it can at least rank higher than King of Collectibles.

The Acolyte has not, and that is terrible news for Manny Jacinto’s arms. It’s not too late, however, to jump on the bandwagon. It’s worth a full-season watch, at least to someone who doesn’t otherwise give a damn about the Star Wars universe but is here for the Jedi getting owned by Amandla Stenberg and the number one Blake Bortles fan, Jason Mendoza.

Source: Nielsen