‘Loki’ Reportedly Takes Huge Hit In Viewership Between Episodes 1 and 3
The third of the big Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ shows is apparently suffering from something its predecessors did not — a massive viewership drop.
According to figures provided by the viewership measurement service Samba TV, 890,000 TVs tuned in to the “Loki” premiere on its first day, but only 727,000 watched the third episode. That means “Loki” started out with numbers greater than previous Marvel Studios outings “WandaVision” (759,000 first-day viewers) and “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier” (655,000 day-one viewers), but seems to have quickly lost steam.
In comparison to previous Marvel series premieres, the first episode of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” landed 1.8 million U.S. households over its first five days, while “WandaVision” snagged 1.6 million.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Following the events of “Avengers: Endgame”, the Falcon, Sam Wilson and the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities, and their patience.
WandaVision
Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives—begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.
Loki
After stealing the Tesseract during the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” an alternate version of Loki is brought to the mysterious Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space and monitors the timeline. They give Loki a choice: face being erased from existence due to being a “time variant” or help fix the timeline and stop a greater threat.
Granted, these figures can be taken with a grain of salt — they are only indicative of TVs that have Samba’s third-party software enabled — which only covers a fraction of the Disney+ subscriber base.
Media news site We Got This Covered also makes an interesting observation — people are searching for “Loki” less than before, saying that the titular character’s sexuality is to blame.
Loki himself is revealed to be canonically bisexual, similar to his Norse counterpart, who could shapeshift and, ahem, “date” to suit his needs. This includes, but is not limited to, transforming into a mare and birthing an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir. So factor that into your horror and outrage, Internet. This is a factor that had already been well-established in the comic book source material years earlier.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”
However, it might be something worse than that — people just find the show boring. Without Thor, Asgard, deities, demons, and the like, Loki isn’t Loki, and fans are making it known.
After such an awesome second episode last week, episode 3 was a huge let down. Verging on the boring. Gutted. #Loki #LokiWednesdays #LokiWednesdaysOnFriday pic.twitter.com/CMxw0UpVik
— Darren Lacey 🏳️🌈 (He/Him) (@dazlarrr) June 25, 2021
#Loki is boring me to tears. I love the MCU so much, but this show is doing absolutely nothing for me.
— Wesley Southard (@WesSouthard) June 24, 2021
Recently watched #Loki episode 2…
— The Vacant Lot *Ex-Anti-Shortaki fanfic writer 😏 (@vacantlotshow) June 20, 2021
Listen Disney you lousy bum I’m not about to waste 4 weeks of my life on this show if the rest of the episodes are as boring and poorly paced as the last one if I wanted a slow burn I’d watch Daredevil on Netflix and another thing pic.twitter.com/uWWPZfRXD4
loki episode 3 was so weird cuz imo it’s the best directed episode so far but it was short and also kinda boring ?
— ً♋︎ (@crazyfilmcritic) June 23, 2021
the loki show is like “what if we initially killed off everyones favorite character… then brought it back you, but killed it again by making it ✨boring✨”
— m (@itmeyourgirlmag) June 24, 2021
I had high hopes for Loki… unfortunately it is one of the worst things the MCU has done. #boring pic.twitter.com/nY9XOC9vvh
— Chris H (@TheStonehelm) June 23, 2021
However, we know from experience that Marvel is great at making grand finales. As the series rises to its crescendo, we imagine numbers will go back up. Until then, viewers will just have to slog through plot and exposition to get to the good stuff.