The CW had an exciting week last week thanks to the DC TV crossover that combined characters from Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow for one ginormous "Heroes v. Aliens" event. Supergirl, The Flash, and Arrow all experienced significant boosts in both ratings and viewership during their episodes of the crossover. The big question was whether or not the audience from the first three nights would follow the action into Thursday for Legends of Tomorrow. Now, the numbers are in, and it turns out that Legends of Tomorrow got a huge bump thanks to the crossover.
The Legends of Tomorrow leg of the crossover attracted 3.33 million viewers and drew an impressive 1.1 rating in the valuable 18-49 age demographic. That over 3 million number is the largest audience ever to tune in to an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, and the demo is a very close second to the 1.2 rating set by the pilot back in January 2016. The numbers translated to an 80% boost in viewership, an 83% jump in the ratings, and a big night for the relatively diminutive CW.
To compare, Supergirl scored 3.5 million viewers and a 1.1 in the 18 - 49 demographic, The Flash won 4.2 million and a 1.5, and Arrow attracted 3.5 million and a 1.3. Legends of Tomorrow still came in fourth, but the fact it even came close to Supergirl is a big win for the time travel show. Although it still lost pretty soundly to The Flash and Arrow, The Flash is regularly the highest-rated superhero series on The CW and Arrow may well have gotten an extra bump in the ratings due to the fact that its leg of the crossover also happened to be its milestone 100th episode. All in all, I'd say that the Legends of Tomorrow team has a good reason to celebrate.
It should be interesting to see how the numbers compare in this week's episode now that the big crossover has come to an end. The grand finale of the crossover took place on Legends of Tomorrow, so any viewers who had tuned in since Monday night were likely to watch on Thursday night, if only to see how the Dominators were defeated. Both The Flash and Arrow experienced drops in subsequent episodes from big crossover numbers in years past, so we should probably expect that Legends of Tomorrow won't break any new records this Thursday.
That said, Arrow experienced an uptick in average numbers after each of its first two crossovers with The Flash. Even if Legends doesn't smash records in the aftermath of "Heroes v. Aliens," it could score higher ratings in the rest of Season 2 than it did in the episodes prior to the crossover. Throw in the fact that the midseason finale is set to bring the Legion of Doom together and reunite the Legends with a familiar face, and a solid audience could be hooked into the show for the second half of Season 2. The crossover ratings (courtesy of TVLine) don't mean that Legends of Tomorrow will necessarily keep up with the other DC TV shows from now on, but they're definitely encouraging. After all, Legends of Tomorrow didn't get off to the strongest start in Season 2.
Tune in to The CW on Thursday, December 8 to catch the Legends of Tomorrow midseason finale, and be sure to check out our 2017 midseason TV premiere schedule.
