After attracting a respectable audience of 2.5 million for the first episode of AMC's "Low Winter Sun", the second episode dipped to a disappointing 1.467 million, according to Samantha Highfill of Entertainment Weekly.
Highfill may be a little premature, but she declares: "Only in its second week, Low Winter Sun already seems to be on its way out." She adds: "It’s a sudden decline, and one that might not be the show’s fault."
She writes:
From day one, Low Winter Sun has been not-so-subtly marketed as the next Breaking Bad. The poster reveals a bald man looking serious and reads “Good man. Cop. Killer.” Get it? It’s a good guy gone bad, just like Walter White. And in the promos for the show, we see that the killing is all about family. Again, not unlike Walt. Oh, did we mention that the killer has an accomplice we’re not sure he can trust? Also, hey, Gale!
At first glance, it makes sense to market Low Winter Sun this way. AMC knows that the audience that will be most likely to watch will be those who don’t change the channel after Breaking Bad, so why not give them another dark drama to enjoy, right? Wrong. It’s one thing to market a show as something similar, and it’s something else to market it as a sort of replacement. Perhaps that wasn’t AMC’s intention, but Breaking Bad is on the way out, so that’s how it comes across."
Clearly, the show isn't flying in the rarified air of "Breaking Bad," at least not yet. And ditto for "The Wire." Both are the gold standard for what compelling TV should be.
Folks affiliated with Low Winter Sun have told Deadline Detroit that it continues to pick up steam as the season progresses, and they're optimistic about a second season.
So is it too soon to write off "Low Winter Sun."
I'd say, yes, way too early, but it has some challenges to battle.
Jeff Rosz, a reader of Entertainment Weekly posted a comment below Samantha Highfill's story:
"It’s a sudden decline, and one that might not be the show’s fault."
The goal was to get the Breaking Bad audience, the most likely group that would support this show, to give it a shot. I think the idea that AMC somehow inflated expectations to the point of causing failure is mind-numbingly absurd.
