The first Fox freshmen to get some optimism for life after their initial 13-episode run, new comedies Grandfathered and The Grinder have received orders from Fox for six more scripts apiece.
The duo that air back-to-back on Tuesday nights in the 8 p.m. hour have been pretty evenly matched in the ratings since their Sept. 29 debuts. With live-plus-three-day viewing, each of the series nabbed a 2.0 rating among adults 18-49. Subsequent episodes have seen same-day showings go quite low — with Grandfathered boasting a slight advantage. (The comedies also have improved Fox’s performance in the Tuesday slots by more than 70 percent from last fall, when reality show Utopia was dragging down the hour.)
Perhaps more importantly to the network, both shows also prompted a solid response from critics. Each is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, Grandfathered in partnership with ABC Studios.
Each of the series is thus far delivering an average 45 percent audience boost with time-shifting and additional platforms. After their next originals, they go off the air on Oct. 27 for World Series baseball.
So far this fall, NBC’s Blindspot and ABC’s Quantico have earned full-season pickups on the broadcast networks. The CW freshman Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the only other newbie to get an additional script order.
