Looks like HBO’s Lovecraft Country has a lot more in common with HBO’s Watchmen.
Considering that both dabble heavily in genre material while tackling said material in an atypical, unexpected manner, that’s not awfully surprising. Both deal with ethereal themes as well as the inescapably reality-based theme of race in America, and both do some rewriting of history, although Lovecraft Country‘s full effect on that last note has a lot left to reveal. Also similar? The ratings of both shows’ debut episodes.
It sure looks like (as expected) the series is reaching a similar audience, at least as far as quantity is concerned. I also suspect that the demographics are largely the same as well, given that Lovecraft Country is probably the closest thing to a Watchmen Season 2 that we’ll ever see. Here are those numbers:
Lovecraft Country drew 760,000 viewers for its on-air premiere, which grew to 1.4 million with replays and streaming. The additional plays and streaming made up about 46 percent of the total first-night audience … [Watchmen had] 799,000 on-air viewers for its debut, which rose to 1.5 million across platforms on night one — with replays and digital making up 47 percent of the total.
That’s pretty remarkable for a horror-drama series, and even more encouraging? Lovecraft Country beat out the debut of The Outsider (724,000), which landed with high expectations from Stephen King fans (and it did not disppoint), although it fell behind Perry Mason (884,000), which arrived with a lot of nostalgia-based appeal this summer.
Where the final premiere numbers shake out over the course of Lovecraft Country‘s run remain to be seen, but if those numbers remain consistent with Watchmen, HBO can look forward to around 7 million total views per episode. Thanks to already strong word of mouth, the successor show shouldn’t have too much difficulty meeting those expectations.
