Empire just broke another record: according to The NY Post, Fox TV’s soap opera musical has already jumped the shark just 4 episodes into it’s 2nd season.
With no plot to speak of and seemingly endless, eye-rolling musical performances by Jussie “the goat” Smollet, viewers are tuning out in droves.
Fox TV execs are struggling to understand why the numbers are in decline from last season.
Empire lost a staggering 6 million viewers since the season premiere last month.
“In short, the excitement that made ‘Empire’ can’t-miss TV is gone,” writes Post TV critic Robert Rorke.
The general consensus seems to be that Empire’s co-creator, the flamboyant, middle-aged queen Lee Daniels, ruined the show by using it for his personal gay agenda.
It doesn’t help that the show’s characters have all switched roles.
From The NY Post:
[L]ast month’s season premiere included a dramatic about-face so inconsistent with what had already happened that it was easy to see that “Empire” was beginning to get away from itself. We’re talking about the final scene, when Jamal (Jussie Smollett) — the gay underdog son who found a champion for his musical ambitions in another underdog, his mother, ex-con Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) — slammed the door in her face, shutting her out of Empire records. Which was now up and running, thanks to her efforts.
Why would he do that? As a flashback from Season 1 reminded us, Lucious (Terrence Howard) tried to put a 5-year-old Jamal in a garbage can when he wore his mother’s kerchief and heels. Even in the mercurial world of soap opera plot twists, where characters’ personalities change on a dime, having Jamal suddenly side with his father was a boneheaded maneuver.
