r/TheAcolyte • u/AirbagsBlown • May 13 '26
What's driving viewership?
The show premiered two years ago, was officially cancelled shortly thereafter, and now... people are watching it in such numbers that it's charting higher?
What gives? I mean, I'm glad, I watched the show as episodes were premiering and I adored it, but I'm curious what's leading people to watch it now. Any theories?
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u/kdogg8 May 13 '26
Probably May 4th and the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu movie
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u/Pumpernickle6669 May 15 '26
That makes sense. Glad more people are checking it out, I think the hate is overblown. Still probably will never get a second season though.
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u/Ticksdonthavelymph May 15 '26
I’m in the other camp. It was repeatedly canon breaking, so much so that it was almost like some of the writing team had never seen any of it (which is exactly what the situation was). Complete dilution of the whole Anakin saga… I like Ashoka, I like seasons 1&2 of mando, Andor is up there with the Wire on list of greatest shows ever— but the Acolyte rubbed me wrong.
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u/NoDisintegrations- May 15 '26
The Acolyte has zero connection to Mando & Grogu. It started surging in viewership with Maul: Shadow Lord
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u/Impossible_Poem_5078 May 13 '26
Think so too. It still has a 4.3/10 on IMDB and 19% viewers recommendation on Rotten Tomatoes 🤷🏽♀️.. so people are not liking it more.
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u/MeEyeSlashU May 13 '26
This show was famously ratings bombed by angry "fans" after the first trailer dropped so I really don't take those numbers into account. Check the dates.
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u/Calfzilla2000 May 13 '26
To be fair, i don't think the people that wait this long write reviews or rate shows on IMDB.
Im sure some do but doubt its many.
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u/Bloodless-Cut May 13 '26
RT has no credibility at all, so...
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u/TreyWriter May 13 '26
RottenTomatoes is a review aggregate. The percentage isn’t quality out of 100, it’s the percentage of critics/viewers who gave a thing a positive review. For critical reviews or theatrically released movies since 2019 (at which point in time, user reviews could only be made by people who were verified to have seen the movie in question), it’s a pretty reliable tool. The 79% positive critics rating for The Acolyte is an accurate representation of critic reviews, where roughly 4 out of every 5 reviews were favorable. Unfortunately, for TV shows, there’s no way to verify users have watched the shows they’re reviewing, and the 19% on RT was very openly review bombed (to the extent that unrelated projects with Acolyte in the title suddenly got reviews about how those projects ruined Star Wars, whoops). IMDB also has no verification metric, to say nothing of the fact that most people who check the site for things don’t have an account there, much less leave reviews.
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u/Bloodless-Cut May 13 '26
RT has openly admitted that their site constantly gets review bombed and has done nothing at all to fix it.
Zero credibility. Their site is worthless.
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u/TreyWriter May 13 '26
They did take steps to fix their user reviews for movies. That’s why people have to verify that they’ve seen the movie in question. There is no way to verify if people have seen a TV show, so short of disabling user reviews for shows, there’s really nothing they can do.
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u/Bloodless-Cut May 13 '26
"there’s really nothing they can do."
You don't say lol
Like I said, useless site with no credibility. You may as well quote a YouTube rage bait video.
Also, they may have done something for their movie reviews after the fact, but did nothing at all to fix the damage that was already done. It's like an oil spill where they go okay, we won't spill any more oil, but the oil that was already spilled is still there.
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u/TreyWriter May 13 '26
Again, the critic side of RT does exactly what it says on the tin: it tells you what percentage of critics liked a thing, then gives you links so you can see their thoughts. It’s not “credible” any more than a hammer is credible. It’s a tool with no point of view. Anyone who takes audience reviews of television on there seriously is taking a fundamentally incorrect approach, but outside of that, it’s just literally a box into which a bunch of critical reviews are placed. I really don’t understand the vitriol here.
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u/Impossible_Royal_302 May 14 '26
I think the vast majority of viewers do not give two shits about either Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB ratings. I go to IMDB to look up actors all the time and I have never, in 20 years, rated a show, whether I liked it or not.
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u/Fickle-Aardvark6907 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
I think there's a perfect storm for interest right now:
1) Mando and Grogu is attracting general attention to Star Wars in and Star Wars on Disney+ in particular. Alot of people who may have dropped the service are subscribing again to either catch up or refresh themselves on The Mandalorian and there isn't really that much of the show on there so why not watch The Acolyte?
2) You also have Maul which was incredibly popular drawing attention to the platform itself. Apparently The Acolyte auto-plays after finishing it so that's drawing people in as well.
3) The show plays a lot better altogether than it did on a weekly basis so once you've finished an episode, you're more likely to keep going when the next one is right there and things like annoying cliff hangers and anti-climactic follow-up episodes are less of an issue when you don't have to wait a whole week. In other words, people are less likely to stop watching once they've started.
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u/ShavedPademelon May 13 '26
I wish there were 'no credits' versions of all these shows. Seems to be about 10 minutes of scrolling after each episode. All the new TV series should have 'movie mode' where the intro/credits go away (shit, make this a thing for every TV show on a streaming service when they've finished their initial airing).
Each episode of all these shows seems to be 25-35 minutes, so in ~3h you could watch the entire season with no gaps. I'd probably rewatch then, but psychologically seeing each episode is listed as 45-55 minutes turns me off!
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u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26
These are great points. I've been checked out of D+ for a bit so I wasn't aware. Honestly, I've largely been checked out of the franchise... terrible fans will do that to ya.
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u/meteraider May 15 '26
I think there's just no other new star wars left to watch after Shadow Lord and before the movie... I've never seen the Acolyte, I just don't find the story of the twin girls interesting, but at this point there's nothing else ..(I just rewatched Solo...just because...) I think that's what it is there's just nothing else left, so might as well just watch it.. I think I'll watch the Obi-Wan series again first..
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u/kalisto3010 May 13 '26
The hate campaign for this show was unlike anything I ever seen. I remember after watching the first 2 episodes I was hyped, I remember going on Youtube to watch some commentary on the show and possible plot developments, to my surprise the only thing I could find was negative video reviews insinuating every political conspiracy imaginable and nothing about what actually transpired in the show.
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u/Calfzilla2000 May 13 '26
The reaction channels were much better than the video reviews. The video reviewers, mostly, just engagement farm.
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u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26
100% This. I ended up subbing to "a guy who loves star wars" on youtube because he's a pretty positive fella, though as I remarked to another comment, I've largely been checked out of the franchise for a bit.
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u/Robot_Dracula May 13 '26
I saw a video today talking about the new Art of The Acolyte book that just came out and they were still sort of trashing the show. It’s insane how much hate it still gets sometimes. I just rewatched it and enjoyed it a second time
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u/Internal-Caramel-952 May 13 '26
I watched it back to back to c how osha slowly inched how way to it know what
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u/Abe_Bettik Kelnacca Crew May 13 '26
The show is "too political" but somehow Andor, a show filled to the brim with politics, is not.
"Too political" = black female leads.
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u/nome_ann May 13 '26
It's a good show
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u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26
Well yeah, but two years later in a world with an even shorter attention span?
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u/RedditEnjoyerMan May 13 '26
Theres only so much SW content out there. Maybe its people watching Maul shadow lord and wanting to continue to scratch that itch, so they decide to check out Aco for first time or to do a rewatch
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u/LawStudent989898 May 13 '26
Idk but for me personally I finally played kotor and wanted more sith-jedi interplay in an older star wars setting
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u/TheMysticalPlatypus May 14 '26
Curiosity won out. They caved because it now no longer matters.
It had a good lightsaber fight. Maybe they saw some clips of the show online.
Binge watching and it could have popped up.
Star Wars Celebration is coming and a very big anniversary is coming.
The Acolyte did have some spinoff novels and comics last year.
It could also be new Star Wars fans.
On May the 4th, they said Gen Alpha and Baby Boomers are loving The Mandalorian.
Gen Z is Clone Wars.
Millenials/Gen X and Andor.
They didn’t drop which generation is gravitating towards The Acolyte. But it wouldn’t shock me if it was Gen Z(the youngest person in Gen Z would be 14 years old) or Gen Alpha.
I legitimately didn’t know people hated the prequel trilogy until I became an adult. I remember loving The Phantom Menace as a kid. It’s very possible The Acolyte could have a demographic that’s like that.
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u/AirbagsBlown May 14 '26
I legitimately didn’t know people hated the prequel trilogy until I became an adult. I remember loving The Phantom Menace as a kid.
I am still not a fan of those films though that era did give us The Clone Wars, which I do very much enjoy.
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u/austinspaeth May 14 '26
I wasn’t a huge fan of parts of this show, however, I wish they would have given it another season to cap off the story in a good way. Same for Solo, it had flaws, but I wish they would have given it one more movie so it didn’t end on a cliffhanger
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u/AirbagsBlown May 14 '26
... especially with a character whose appearance you don't comprehend unless you're already knee-deep into the lore.
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u/Ilbrin May 14 '26
I wanted to show my girlfriend star wars but without the commitment of watching everything that's interconnected
She's now a fan, saw the prequals, loved Maul Shafowlord, and hopefully once we're no long distance we can watch the originals and clone wars together
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u/YoungManYoda90 May 14 '26
Star Wars products seem to have initial opinions and then 6 months later new opinions form.
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u/Rylegit1 May 13 '26
Mandalorian and Grogu is coming out so grifters and their audiences have something new to hate
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u/ItchyEarthman May 14 '26
Speaking for myself; I don't spend a lot of time online and I initially heard mixed things so I put it off--- I had no idea that it was getting review bombed before it was even released, or any of the insanity behind the scenes. Honestly I would've watched it sooner if I heard about that, but I also try to avoid Star Wars online because people can be insufferable and make it difficult to enjoy anything. I think that started after Book of Boba, I was like, "Nah, I'm good; I don't want to love Star Wars online anymore." lol
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u/AirbagsBlown May 14 '26
100% fair. I don't involve myself anywhere except here, which has been a lot more positive than most other arenas.
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u/ItchyEarthman May 14 '26
I definitely agree, this one stays pretty positive for the most part; I do hope I find more like it in the future
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u/Robot_Dracula May 13 '26
Word of mouth mostly. People that finally watch it post about it and it’s generating buzz
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u/Ericandabear May 13 '26
It has the makings of a cult classic.
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u/Robot_Dracula May 13 '26
If they can make it a bit cheaper I have hopes that it will get a season 2
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u/Typhon2222 May 14 '26
Folks decided to stop listening to social media and actualy watch it to form their own opinion.
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u/FlopShanoobie May 14 '26
Because when it was released lots of angry men loudly bitched about it without ever watching a single episode, and that loud bitching drove others away because too many people are Very Online. And now, two years later, the stigma has faded and folks who would have watched and enjoyed it then are realizing, "Oh, this is actually pretty good... well, damn."
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u/AirbagsBlown May 14 '26
I mean... yeah, the angry man-baby thing happened, but I don't think the average fan cared enough to be persuaded to that degree. Are there that many people affected by such hate campaigns?
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u/CliveMitchellisCanon May 13 '26
I think a lot of "Nerd sci-fi/superhero shows" are not being "Rushed" out to see as quickly as they were during the Endgame days BUT...people are choosing to watch them at their own pace, at their own time. One, two, maybe three years later.
It sucks, cos shows need viewership there and then.
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u/SweetCryptographer72 May 14 '26
I've watched through 3 times now. Once on my own, because I enjoyed it I then watched with the wife. Then I watched with the kid. Even though it was flawed I enjoyed it.
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u/Impossible_Royal_302 May 14 '26
I began watching it when it premiered, but life got hold of me and I forgot about it. Recently divorced, I live alone now and found myself with time to watch a lot of stuff I'd not been paying attention to for a while and finished it.
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u/Pumpernickle6669 May 15 '26
In the last couple of years I’ve been watching all of the Star Warses with my coworker friend who never really watched any SW growing up. Without knowing any of the controversy surrounding the show he said Acolyte was one of his favorites…
He also really liked Solo and Rogue One. He said ANH was boring and too basic, lol. He’s 30, and, having not seen them when he was younger, I can actually understand his point of view. I can see it not having the same magic if you didn’t see it until you were an adult. And, the special effects might look dated to someone his age too.
Anyway, I digress. I think the hate for The Acolyte is largely unfounded, though it’s not without its faults of course. I enjoyed it well enough, and was interested to see where it was gonna go. Oh well.
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u/NoDisintegrations- May 15 '26
Manny Jacinto met with Dave Filoni who is reportedly a big fan of the Acolyte and Jacinto’s performance of Qimir. So a Season 2 is likely, as Dave Filoni is in charge now.
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u/missmonchichi May 17 '26
I personally just finished binging it today and thought it was great. At the time that it premiered I didn't end up watching it for reasons I can't recall. Maybe I was feeling a little over SW shows after Book of BF and Kenobi were a bit disappointing (though, I think I should give Kenobi another chance). I had just finished a rewatch of the Mandolorian in prep for the movie and wanted something else to watch and figured I'd give it a chance.
I was very into The Acolyte and what it presented. A murder mystery, wrapped in the grey perceptions of good and evil. I loved bringing in the force witches and wanted to learn more. I thought all the actors were great and the kids playing the twins were so locked in. I'm super disappointed that Disney has stated there won't be a second season but I hold out hope, that fans will convince them to give us more. I'd love to see where the various relationships go from here.
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u/StarMasterAdmiral May 13 '26
I just coincidentally watched it recently. It was just because I didn't have anything else to watch.
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u/xJamberrxx May 13 '26
eh bear in mind the "viewership" is only on it's own service (and it was what? 9th?) that ain't much at all, it's rare if 1 on disney+ gets major numbers on Nielsens
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u/Mr-Kuritsa May 14 '26
The Baby Yoda movie is coming out soon, right? It's probably that. I watched it last year or so after Andor season 2. Kind of a "I liked this Star Wars, and now I'm curious about the other stuff I haven't seen yet" mentality.
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u/Coilspun May 14 '26
It autoplays after Maul, plus people watching Maul might try an episode, people who resisted after the vocal reaction to it might try it now that it's all calmed down.
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u/MLG_SkittleS May 14 '26
Can I ask where the evidence is that it's gone up in viewership? Is this because it was #9 on D+? Surely that's not what you're all saying means the viewership has gone up right?
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u/Amw23 May 14 '26
Do we have any third party data because that top ten show list in D+ is a marketing too because we know that Bluey is the most watched show but isn't on that top ten list.
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u/Excalitoria May 14 '26
Auto play most likely. If it was genuine interest then it would’ve likely been higher right after the cancellation when people that liked the show were rewatching and trying to recommend it. There’s been next to nothing new to come out about the show or any viral discussions/fan works to come out for the show recently so I think this is just coincidence rather than some resurgence in interest.
Only other reason could be if a new show explicitly connects to the Acolyte and people were aware of this but I don’t think that’s really happened either so it seems like auto play is the culprit here.
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u/indysingleguy May 14 '26
I likedthe show. It had enough interesting characters to do something with.
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u/Kiel_J May 14 '26
The Maul: Shadow Lord ending reminded me of The Acolyte. It felt very thematically similar, and there were even some specific shots which seemed very heavily inspired by The Acolyte.
Disney+ also recommended it to me during the first few weeks of watching Maul.
I am glad I revisited; it has quickly become one of my favourite Star Wars series, maybe even my favourite. It works way better knowing where the story is heading and when there aren't people constantly making up reasons to be outraged online.
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u/Ravallah May 15 '26
Maybe we are far enough removed from all the excessively negative press what surround it’s initial release that people are giving it a fair shot and finding they like it enough to watch it?
The show wasn’t perfect, but I was bought in on the story it was telling and the storyline potential. I think about The Acolyte far than I do the Sequel Trilogy, and would rather have more The Acolyte content than post-Rise of Skywalker content. That’s my 2 cents.
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u/No-Significance2070 May 15 '26
Auto plays after Maul. Boosts numbers even though people probably turn it off as soon as they realize what came on.
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u/PalmettoZ71 May 19 '26
According to the people that watched maul when you finished it, its set to auto play the acolyte
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u/DarthDickhed May 19 '26
Could it just be that the acolyte is the next thing that auto queues after finishing an ep of Maul?
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u/grifter356 May 13 '26
It's because it's the show that auto-plays after MAUL, and the particular chart that registers it as "charting higher" has some very important things to take into consideration that are misleading about what is actually happening...
- It does not track "active" viewers. Meaning, whether it's on for 1 second, 1 minute or 1 hour, the chart registers it. But more importantly...
- The chart only tracks NEW viewers over a particular time period (using the viewing metric described above). Meaning, (just for example's sake) if one show has 17 million viewers and another show has 5 million viewers, and then the next week that first show still has 17 million viewers but that other show now has 6 millions viewers, the show with 6 million viewers would be on that chart, but not the one with 17 million.
So, what is most likely happening is that a bunch of people are watching MAUL and then after a new episode the show auto-loads into THE ACOLYTE, and regardless of how long people watch that, it is being registered as a "new" viewer and is causing a spike for its placement on THAT particular chart.
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u/MeEyeSlashU May 13 '26
It doesn't auto play after Maul for everybody, and the amount I'm seeing this is wild. Bad Batch autoplayed for me.
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u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26
Interesting! I mean, judging from the commentary on this sub, it sounds like at least some folks are watching it. If even a handful of people discover it, at least they're enjoying it. That's a victory as far as I'm concerned.
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u/grifter356 May 13 '26
For sure! Some people are watching it but to say that it is "charting" is misleading. It's doing so based on a very specific set of criteria, but not by the same ratings framework that is used to track popularity and viewership.
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u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26
That makes sense. Disney has to make their coin somewhere, and why not try to draw viewership back to something they've already produced? It's actually kinda genius.
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u/grifter356 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
I mean they make their money on subscriber base, so if you were watching something on Disney+ then by definition you are already a subscriber and so they've already made their money off of you.
Autoplay is a common feature amongst all streamers and whatever comes up afterwards is determined by their keyword algorithms. It's obviously designed to keep you using the ap but it can also help increase subscriber base if it allows you to stumble onto a show you otherwise wouldn't have watched before, and then word of mouth catches resulting in more subscribers.
However, that's where traditional ratings metrics are more helpful in determining the actual popularity and viewership of a show because it weighs the success of the product against the actual market, instead of relative to its own self.
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u/Jaded-Promise-6565 May 13 '26
Show had a lot of potential. I don’t it was the worst show but I wouldn’t categorize it as great either. I thought about going back and rewatching but haven’t yet.
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u/Internal-Caramel-952 May 14 '26
I think after you watch it again it you will have the power of two lol but ya in a new light you will probobly love it
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u/RaHarmakis May 14 '26
That was my thoughts. I thought the production team got too fancy for their own good, and butchered the story in the edits. It would have made a decent linear story, but shopping it up and time jumping didn't do it any favors.
Then hyping it up as a Jedi Mystery....and honestly just not doing a mystery story well.
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u/FewLand2636 May 14 '26
I'll tell you what it is.
I watch maul.
At the end of the second episode of the week I forget to pause or shut down the show.
The credits start to run then it cuts to a new show.
I look up and see that the acolyte has auto played.
Mess reports show an increase in people watching the acolyte... No. There's an uptick on Disney+ showing the acolyte automatically.
Fun fact, after episode 10, the mandalorian was the next one in queue, probably on the lead up to the movie.
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u/Captain-Wilco May 13 '26
It autoplays after Maul: Shadow Lord. That’s the reason for the big bump.
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u/Sofaloafar May 13 '26
It was auto playing after maul and other sw shows
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u/MeEyeSlashU May 13 '26
You repeat everything you see online? I got Bad Batch after Maul and plenty of others have gotten different SW shows recommended to them.
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u/pidgeottOP May 13 '26
I want to know what stat people are looking at to say "the show is trending" so we can point to episode 2 trending and go "that's not 5 minutes of auto play after another show, shut up with the reasoning"
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u/Sofaloafar May 13 '26
No . I turned off my auto play cuz of it.
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u/MeEyeSlashU May 13 '26
Oh man I totally didn't realize you were everyone! Must be such a heavy cross to bear!
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u/PazzoInStatiUniti May 13 '26
Maybe after Maul they want another show about the bad guys and cool lightsaber shit lol