When new episode of AMC Interview with the Vampire aired last Sunday, a particular type of fuse was lit in online conversations surrounding the show. The second season’s fifth installment, “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,” is a perfectly written and acted miniature horror movie—the kind of movie you watch with your mouth agape, before just into the TV and said, “Did you see this too?!?!”
Yet as thousands of people took to social media to ask that very question, much of the commentary was punctuated by confusion, even worry, that people were not, in fact, seeing it—that they don’t see it. Interview with the Vampire at all. Many people say that for such a good show, it’s criminal that more people don’t watch and discuss it and that more critics don’t cover it. “This is the best show on television right now,” New York Times culture reporter Kyle Buchanan wrote in the New York Times. a widely shared tweet. “I find it surprising that you all like to talk about average performances or worse, watch the gold standard!”
Some fans have noticed a decrease in critical coverage compared to the first season, which received near-universal acclaim and helped the show and its lead actors’ performances. , Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid, ranked among the best at the end of the year. -of the list. If anything, the show’s second season received an even higher percentage of positive reviews, but the level of coverage that other lauded shows typically receive (and is receiving as we speak) is noticeably absent from mainstream TV channels.
Plugged in fans also noticed a drop in viewership compared to the first season, at least according to publicly available figures, and before the June 9 episode, Slate published an article titled, “Interview with the Vampire It’s the best show that almost no one watches,” which presents those numbers clearly. The news started spreading—especially on up-to-the-minute platforms like X but also spreading to places like Reddit, TikTok, and even my home baseTumblr, which is more likely to host gifsets, shitposts or graduate seminar-level analyzes of shows than discussions about terrestrial TV ratings.
AMC announced IWTVof the second season before the first aired, but midway through the second season there was no word on a third—and with a narrative building about “the best show no one watches.” , especially after an episode with so many viewers. is going crazy, fans are starting to worry about its fate. Especially on causing a firestorm that lasted for days. “The marketing choices that AMC is making with Interview with the Vampire is self-destructive.” one fan wrote. Or, in words of others: “It’s crazy that they Googled me, the head of marketing at AMC.”
there may be plenty of reasons why a program in 2024 — this or any other — won’t have the impact it deserves; The flood of pixels has exhausted streamers and left audiences fractured over the past few years. AMC, the darling of the prestige cable era, is in a particularly strange position: Even if InterviewIts first season was a success on the streaming service AMC+, it still is given as an example of an industry struggling to transition. Two years and two strikes in Hollywood Later, the situation became even more complicated. As the industry restructures and changes, who can see what is where, disconnection has appeared between what viewers like and what critics do. At the same time, social media platforms—the word-of-mouth venues of the 21st century—continue to explode, disrupting the conversations of an already fragmented audience.
