The return of 1990s and early 2000s hit The X-Files to our televisions brought in blockbuster ratings for FOX on Sunday night, even with a delayed start thanks to the NFL’s NFC Championship game. The show’s regular timeslot for the rest of this season will be Monday nights, and the second episode, which aired in that timeslot, opened the night to an impressive 3.2 18-49 rating with 9.6 million viewers. More good news came after The X-Files on Monday night; Lucifer in its premiere, scored as well.
The report from Deadline notes that Lucifer’s launch gave FOX a solid 2.4 rating in 18-49 with 7.2 million viewers, meaning that the show held on to a lot of their lead in audience from The X-Files, and also tied the new series with FOX’s first season drama Rosewood as their highest rated series premiere this season in Live+ same day viewing. Lucifer, with that one episode, has already managed to outperform every episode of Minority Report, the show that it replaced, and more than doubled that show’s premiere.
Lucifer is a detective procedural based on the popular Neil Gaiman graphic novel series of the same name. In the show, the Lucifer (Tom Ellis) has abandoned his post as ruler of Hell to take a vacation from lording over demons and the torment of damned souls. He plants himself in Los Angeles (ha, ha), opens a fancy nightclub and commences to dabbling in the lives of the mortals around him. When he meets police detective Chloe Dancer (Lauren German), who’s investigating a case involving one of his human projects, his special talents as a fallen angel easily make him a very effective police consultant.
Lucifer changed a lot of basics from the graphic novel. In the original stories there was no police procedural aspect, and, instead of being tied to Earth for his entire sabbatical, Lucifer traveled among many different mystical realms. Even though fans of those Neil Gaiman stories don’t have a lot to hold on to other than Lucifer Morningstar and his time owning a club in L.A., it looks like people were still eager to give the show a shot.
There’s no denying that the procedural facet of the show is attractive to many people. Fox’s own Rosewood also features a similar storytelling tactic, and there are many other shows spread across the television landscape that check that box for viewers. Long-running shows like Law & Order: SVU on NBC and CBS’s Criminal Minds have both made procedural detective stories their bread and butter.
Well, it looks like Lucifer is off to a strong start and might continue to keep FOX in good ratings for the weeks to come. If you want to jump on the Lucifer train, the show airs every Monday at 9 p.m. EST.
