Ratings Report: 'Atlanta' off to a slow start, 'Mo' delights with critics

Broadcast: FOX’s hour-long first responder drama, 9-1-1, returned on Monday, September 19 at 8:00 PM EST/PST for its sixth season. The season’s inaugural episode, “Let the Games Begin,” brought in 4.8 million viewers in total and earned a rating of 0.69 with adults 18-49. While the premiere’s ratings remain strong, they fall short of the previous season’s average of 5.22 million viewers per episode and 0.76 average rating with the adult demographic. 9-1-1 had already inspired one spin-off— 9-1-1: Lonestar— and with the current viewership numbers, it's quite possible FOX is still eying the franchise’s potential to spawn further iterations. The show’s first responders include a team of firefighters led by Peter Krause’s Capt. Bobby Nash, the paramedics assigned to their unit, and Angela Bassett’s Srgt. Athena Grant. The series finds its unique appeal among other law enforcement shows by focusing on urgent emergencies as they unfold rather than on long and drawn-out police procedural-style investigations. 

9-1-1 was created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk— the duo behind Glee and American Horror Story creators— along with Angel and Firefly producer Tim Minear. Bassett and Krause lead the cast including Oliver Stark (Into the Badlands, Underworld: Blood Wars), Aisha Hinds (Underground, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Kenneth Choi (The Wolf of Wall Street, Spider-Man: Homecoming), Ryan Guzman (Everybody Wants Some!!, The Boy Next Door), Corinne Massiah (Mistresses, Secrets and Lies), and Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer, The Client List). 9-1-1 airs on FOX on Mondays at 8:00 PM EST/PST. Episodes are available to stream on Hulu the day following their release. 

Cable: Donald Glover’s critical darling Atlanta returned to FX on Thursday, September 15 with a double-episode event to kick off the half-hour comedy’s fourth and final season. The show’s concluding run begins with its four main characters— Earn, Paper Boi, Darius, and Van— returning to their titular hometown following the events of season 3’s finale. The first and second installments of the ten-episode season premiered back to back and enjoyed moderate viewership counts. “The Most Atlanta,” the first episode, earned a 0.07 rating with adults 18-49 and measured roughly 216,000 total viewers. The subsequent episode, “The Homeliest Little Horse,” fell well behind its forerunner, garnering a 0.05 rating with the 18-49 demographic and attracting only 126,000 viewers overall. These latest viewership levels for the comedy-drama reflect a substantial decrease in the overall popularity of the show between its third and fourth season. Season 3 of Atlanta, which aired earlier this year and earned three Emmy nominations, raked in roughly 300,000 viewers on average for its first and second episodes while maintaining a rating of 0.13 with the 18-49 demographic. While the declining first-run ratings could indicate a collapse in popularity, the show’s day-after-airing availability on Hulu may also account for the decreased number of younger viewers. The show’s appeal certainly remains more oriented towards a younger demographic that is more likely to stream content after the fact than watch it during its initial, scheduled release on cable. Perhaps in its farewell season Atlanta will reclaim its historic popularity with younger viewers both on FX and on Hulu.

Atlanta was created by Donald Glover (also known as musical artist Childish Gambino) who executive produces the show along with Stephen Glover, Hiro Murai, Stefani Robinson, Paul Simms, and Dianne McGunigle. Glover leads the cast as Earnest ‘Earn’ Marks along with Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz. The show airs on Thursdays at 10:00 PM EST/PST on FX. Seasons 1-3 are available to stream on Hulu and episodes from season 4 are available on Hulu the day after they air. 

Streaming: Stand-up comic and actor Mohammed Amer (Ramy, Americanish) has struck critical gold with his new half-hour comedy series on Netflix, Mo. Since its August 24 premiere last month, Mo has earned a 100% certified fresh rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 90% audience score on average across 200 user ratings. The show’s eight-episode first season follows Amer’s Mo Najjar, a Palestinian refugee seeking U.S. citizenship who lives with his family in Houston, TX. The series uses irreverent and gritty humor adeptly while still managing to capture the more heartfelt aspects of the main character’s lived experience with tenderness and sensitivity. In this way, Mo finds success with viewers and critics alike by using its status as a comedy to explore more serious issues such as islamophobia, xenophobia, and what it means to be a refugee. The show was created and executive produced by Amer and his fellow comedian turned multi-hyphenate Ramy Youseff. Youseff executive produces and stars in his own comedy series, Hulu’s Ramy, in which Amer appears as a supporting character called Mo. Amer’s past credits also include two stand-up specials on Netflix, 2018’s Mo Amer: The Vagabond and 2021’s Mo Amer: Mohammed in Texas. Mo’s supporting cast includes Teresa Ruiz, Omar Elba, Farah Bsieso, Walt Roberts, and Mohammed Hindi. 

Season 5 of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, the sequel series to the 1984 cult classic The Karate Kid, continued to dominate the streaming giant’s most-watched list for the second week in a row. In the first week following its debut on September 9, the new season garnered 106.7 million hours in global viewership. In its second week, the show added an additional 95.6 million hours to that tally, retaining its #1 spot on the viewership charts. Season 5 has already earned a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics and a 94% audience score with upwards of 800 user ratings. On average, the series as a whole achieved a 95% with critics on the rating site and an audience score of 93%. The soaring viewership levels of Cobra Kai come as no surprise when considering how the series caters to the interests of a multi-generational audience. By revamping older, iconic characters from The Karate Kid like Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso and William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence and letting the original actors reprise their roles, the show directly appeals to the fans of the original film. The inclusion of younger actors and the portrayal of new characters in Cobra Kai breathes fresh life into a pre-existing narrative while bolstering the series’ appeal to younger viewers and staking a claim for the regenerative potential of the franchise’s future. Cobra Kai was created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg and is based on characters created by Robert Mark Kamen. All three creators also serve as executive producers along with James Lassiter and Caleeb Pinkett. Macchio and Zabka lead the cast which also includes Courtney Henggeler (The Big Bang Theory, Mom), Xolo Maridueña (Parenthood, Cleopatra in Space), and Tanner Buchanan (Designated Survivor, The Fosters). 

International: Netflix’s newly released series Diary of a Gigolo, or Diario de un Gigolo, made waves upon its September 7th debut by quickly becoming the streaming platform’s second most popular non-English series within four days of its premiere. In its first week alone, the steamy Argentinian drama clocked in an impressive 27.98 million hours of viewership globally. That measurement falls a few million hours short of South Korean legal drama sensation, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which continued to top Netflix’s viewership chart for the tenth week in a row.  Diary of a Gigolo follows high-end escort Emmanuel after an older client, Ana, hires him to seduce her loveless daughter, Julia, in a bid to boost the young woman’s self-confidence. Spanish actor Jesus Castro (Secretos de Estado, Marshland) stars as Emmanuel and Mexican actresses Fabiola Campomanes (El juego de las llaves, Mi corazon es tuyo) and Victoria White (The Search for Frida) play Ana and Julia, respectively. The cast also includes Venezuela’s Francisco Denis (Narcos, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan) and Oscar-nominated Mexican actress, Adriana Barraza (Babel, Thor). 

The show’s sudden and significant rise to success can be attributed at least in some part to his unique blending of genres that marries romance with suspense by structuring the narrative as first and foremost a mystery. By mixing sensuality and emotion with thriller elements such as an unsolved homicide and a protagonist with a major secret, Diary of a Gigolo relies on delayed revelations and well-designed plot twists to keep audiences guessing as they fall deeper into the complex and scandalous world of the show. Diary of a Gigolo was produced by Telemundo Studios and their Argentinian-based affiliate, Underground Contenidos. The show’s creator and Underground’s founder, Sebastian Ortega, is a writer and producer whose past work includes the crime drama Un gallo para Esculapio and the thriller series El Marginal. The series was penned by former Graduates and 100 Days to Fall in Love writers Silvina Frejdkes and Alejandro Quesada. The ten episodes in season one were directed by Valeria Ambrosio, Mariano Ardanaz, and Martin Fisner. Diary of a Gigolo is currently available to stream on Netflix.