Mr. Robot hasn’t even officially premiered yet and USA is already extremely confident in the series. The network announced on Wednesday that its brand new drama—which officially hits the schedule tonight—has already been renewed for Season 2. Reports indicate that Mr. Robot will get at least 10 episodes next season, but that USA could sign on for more, likely depending on how well the drama catches on with audiences.
Of course, the renewal is actually more calculated than it may initially seem. Mr. Robot received a splashy release during SXSW earlier this year. The pilot premiere paid off, as it earned the series pretty good buzz, and Mr. Robot has been doing well with the critical crowd, at least, ever since. More recently, the cable network has worked to get the pilot in front of as many viewers as possible, releasing the first episode via outlets including but not limited to Xfinity On Demand, USANetwork.com, the USA Now App, Hulu, YouTube, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Vudu, XBOX Video, PlayStation Video, and M-GO. All of those efforts paid off. Variety reports that more than 3 million viewers have caught the pilot since it went live toward the end of May.
Not everyone who caught the pilot will obviously stick with the series moving forward, but if you combine 3 million early views with whatever number tunes in for the drama tonight, Mr. Robot should be sitting pretty during Season 1. (Especially since USA’s other big draws, like Suits and Graceland frequently do less than 2 million total same day viewers, these days.) With that in mind, it’s easy to see why USA would be betting big on its latest original programming endeavor. Season 2 will hit the schedule in 2016.
If you haven’t caught Mr. Robot, yet, we highly suggest you give the series a watch. The series stars Rami Malek as Elliot, a young man with a lot of anger, but also a unique skill set. One day, Elliot meets an underground hacking organization with an interesting mission. The group wants to recruit him. This leads to interesting performances from Christian Slater, Carly Chaikin and others. Watching people engage in hacking isn't typically the most exciting of premises, but Mr. Robot delivers with a stylish pilot that introduces us to oddball characters and an intricate but still digestible hacking world.
You can catch the show tonight at 10 p.m. ET on USA. Or, you know, just catch it here.
