In an era of MCU ups and downs, Daredevil: Born Again has been a breath of fresh air. Namely, season 2, free from a hacked-together season 1, which had to use an old, worse baseline. Season 2 has already produced some of the best episodes of any MCU series in history, but…is anyone actually watching it?
Yes, obviously, some people are, and every week social media, depending on your algorithm, is filled with raves about it. But in the scope of the broader streaming landscape and Disney’s own productions, it doesn’t seem like it can be classified as performing anything but poorly, at least from the outside.
The return of Daredevil in the form of Born Again, after waiting for almost eight years for its return after the beloved Netflix series, seemed like it would be a huge event. Instead, not a single episode of Born Again ever charted on the Nielsen top 10 list over the course of its season. Disney revealed that 7.5 million people watched in its first five days, but in context, that was a decent amount lower than Loki season 2 at 10.9 million and even Agatha All Along at 9.3 million.
Now, it’s starting again. The Nielsen numbers are on a delay, but we know that the premiere of Born Again season 2 did not chart again. Yes, it’s just the premiere episode, but you would imagine that the premiere would have a better chance of being higher than most of the other episodes, perhaps short of the finale. It is hard to escape the idea that Daredevil is one of the worst-performing shows, if not the worst. The far less high-profile Wonder Man even arrived at #8 on the Nielsen charts for its premiere (a binge drop likely helped there). Echo had even more minutes than Wonder Man, again, a binge drop, so maybe that’s at least part of the problem here.
But Marvel doesn’t seem to care. Two seasons of Born Again were more or less instantly greenlit, and season 3 is filming as we speak, so it will be roughly a year between seasons again. A Punisher special is nearly here, and there are rumors about a Jessica Jones show, and maybe another starring Luke Cage and/or Iron Fist, who will appear in season 3. What’s happening here?
Cost – Reportedly, the budget of Daredevil: Born Again is relatively high, but less so than some of Marvel’s pricier productions, which were on the level of some blockbuster movies.
New Focus – The idea here seems to be that the future of Disney Plus MCU shows will focus more on “street-level” content rather than big movie tie-ins or comically enormous productions like Secret Wars. Wonder Man’s renewal seems like part of that, and there’s really only VisionQuest left to go as the kind of “old” show we’ve mostly seen so far.
Critic and Fan Love – It has to be a consideration that Disney understands that, no matter how many people are watching, Born Again is an extremely good series in an era when the quality of the MCU is often disputed. Both critics and fans are scoring it well and individual episodes are setting user review records for the whole universe.
As for why it’s viewership is so low, I’m having a tough time figuring that out. I think it’s a combination of a few things. One is the fact that again, the last time we saw a Daredevil series was eight years ago, and three seasons of that can feel like “homework,” as this has full continuity with that series, and is not a “reboot” in any traditional sense.
Then, the lack of a binge drop model is part of why a show like Wonder Man is charting, and this isn’t, though you can argue whether that’s a good or bad thing to further “conversation” about the series, or if it just means too many people are waiting until it’s over to binge, if they remember to at all.
No matter what’s happening, we are getting at least three seasons of Born Again, that Punisher special, and what I have to believe is going to be another spinoff/revival or two on top of that. I do think the street-level idea is a good one for Disney Plus, but they may have to change some things to get more people watching.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
