Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ratings Hit A Series Low With Captain America: The Winter Soldier Tie-In

In spite of high expectations, Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tie-in to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which aired last night to glowing reviews from fans and critics, scored just a 1.7/6 in the ratings, a 15% decrease in the demo from the its last new episode and a series low. It's the first time the live + SD overnight ratings have reflected less than 5 million total viewers for the series (scoring 4.91 million). It's possible that some viewers were scared away by the connection to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, particularly casual viewers who hadn't gone out opening weekend to see the film. Last night's episode will air again next week as part of a two-hour event with a new episode following. Presumably, that's to give people a chance to see the movie, and/or to hear good things about the episode, and tune in to get caught up. This isn't the first time a tie to the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't yielded the desired ratings boost: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. got a ratings bump out of the recent appearance by Jaimie Alexander as Thor's Lady Sif, but not as big as they might have hoped — and that came the week Thor: The Dark World was hitting Blu-ray. Both The Voice and About a Boy also scored season lows (series low for About a Boy), so TV was down more or less across the board. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also generally rises significantly in live+3 and live+7 numbers. The show generally rises very slightly in the final numbers, so an adjustment could be coming later today. S.H.I.E.L.D. is also getting an extra bit of juice next week when ABC plans to show last night's episode again and an original back-to-back.