"How Are They Doing?": The Boys, Big Mistakes, Beef, Malcolm In The Middle, The Testaments, Margo's Got Money Troubles

A collection of middling audience levels.

May 03, 2026

The Boys on Amazon: S5 is the last for one of Amazon’s strongest series, which is now more middle-of-the-road than top-tier. Through the first four episodes and eight days of viewing for each, the season is averaging 3.9M viewers. Compared to the full S4 average for eight days, S5 is down -37%. On top of this negative news, Amazon just announced that the two-year-old spin-off, Gen V, will not be returning for a third season.

Amazon has built numerous universes from published fiction, such as Bosch, Reacher, Scarpetta, Cross, Rings of Power, and The Summer I Turned Pretty. While the one based on The Boys, known as the VCU, appears to be on the way out, there is a third series coming in 2027 called Vought Rising. Amazon does not get the credit it deserves for its world-building, which it does better than all over SVOD platforms.

Source: Luminate

Big Mistakes and Beef on Netflix: Two new comedy series have had underwhelming levels for their first two weeks of viewing.

Big Mistakes is Dan Levy’s first marquee TV project post Schitt’s Creek. Even Netflix’s marketing capitalizes on Creek, which has been a staple on the service for years. In 2025, on a global basis, it attracted 25.1M viewers, ranking #53 out of 2852 acquired TV shows on the platform with at least 100,000 viewers.

However, Big Mistakes does not appear to be benefiting from a Schitt’s Creek halo, as it is delivering 4.7M viewers after 14 days in the U.S. according to Luminate, which makes it a lower-ranked series as illustrated in the first chart below. It is well under such Netflix comedies as The Four Seasons, Running Point, Emily In Paris, Leanne, and Man Vs. Baby. In Netflix’s self-reported global data, the show has garnered 7.1M viewers after its launch weekend + the first full week, with a similarly low rank as seen in the table that follows the chart.

Season 2 of Beef has fared even worse. S1 in April 2023 was a solid performer, but really secured its reputation when Steven Yeun and Ali Wong won lead actor and actress awards at both the Golden Globes and the Emmys, while the series won an Emmy for best limited/anthology series. However, with three years in between seasons, and a different cast since the show is an anthology, the audience momentum from that awards run has been squandered.

In the U.S., the new season has attracted 3.2M viewers in two weeks, one of the least-watched of the key Netflix series I have been tracking since the start of 2025. This is down -68% from the equivalent measurement for S1. Worldwide, according to Netflix, Beef S2 earned 6.5M viewers, also low on the table of global data, and down -64% from S1 (18M viewers).

Source: Luminate

Source: Netflix

Malcolm In The Middle and The Testaments on Hulu: Two recent Hulu originals are both based on existing IP, which are 26 and 41 years old, respectively.

Malcolm In The Middle premiered in 2000 on Fox and ran for seven seasons, so a four-episode revival seems very odd. Once the cast, sets, crew, and scripts are assembled, why order four? It is almost pointless to go to these lengths to produce less than two hours of television. I realize the answer may have to do with Bryan Cranston’s schedule — but still. This show is not beloved enough to inspire many sign-ups, and it is too short to drive much usage. It’s baffling.

Audience interest in the project has been mild, with 2.1M viewers after the first eight days of viewing, which puts it almost smack in the middle of other Hulu originals. Hulu does not serve up many comedies and Maclcolm is number three since 2025 in that genre behind The Bear, which is more of a comedy/drama, and Chad Powers.

The Testaments is a sequel to Hulu’s first scripted success, The Handmaid’s Tale, which was based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood. Through five episodes and eight days of consumption, it has accumulated an average audience of 2.6M, which is -42% vs the comparable specs for The Handmaid’s Tale S6, revealing that the fanbase of the mothership was not highly engaged.

Source: Luminate

Margo’s Got Money Troubles on Apple: This new series with serious star power, including Elle Fanning, Nick Offerman, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Nicole Kidman, has been a fairly average performer, finding 2.2M viewers for the first four episodes for days 1-8. As depicted in the table below, it ranks behind such series as The Last Frontier and Slow Horses and just ahead of Imperfect Women, also a recent, new program, and Silo S2. This is not a particularly successful neighborhood. Slow Horses is an award-winner and is heralded, but not a large audience magnet.