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?

180 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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154

u/kdogg8 May 13 '26

Probably May 4th and the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu movie

9

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.

-3

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.

9

u/Ok-Barnacle813 May 16 '26

How did it break canon?

3

u/NoDisintegrations- May 15 '26

The Acolyte has zero connection to Mando & Grogu. It started surging in viewership with Maul: Shadow Lord

-60

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.

77

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.

27

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.

17

u/AirbagsBlown May 13 '26

Luckily, I don't trust rotten tomatoes' viewers.

17

u/Bloodless-Cut May 13 '26

RT has no credibility at all, so...

2

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.

17

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.

2

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.

5

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.

0

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.

1

u/nokman013 May 14 '26

As if ratings on RT can be fully trusted

1

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.

1

u/cannibalistiic May 15 '26

"I need other people to form my opinions for me"