Ryan Murphy‘s new ABC medical drama Doctor Odyssey starring Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson is headed for the record books with its trailer logging 77.8 million views within its first 48 hours of release. The total makes this the most-watched trailer for a new broadcast TV show ever. The prior record was held by NBC’s This Is Us, which amassed a similar total over its first 11 days.
The top platform for Doctor Odyssey was TikTok, which accounted for 38.8M views on the official ABC channel alone, with Facebook coming up behind. Back in 2016 when This Is Us premiered, TikTok was in its infancy, with the lion share of trailer viewing done on Facebook (50M in 11 days.)
Like most trailers for new broadcast series, This Is Us was unveiled in May during the upfronts. Meanwhile, the Doctor Odyssey trailer dropped just 10 days before the series premieres Sept 26, following a brief teaser. Released a month ahead of the premiere, it also has amassed millions of views. (Both Doctor Odyssey and This Is Us are produced by the same studio, 20th TV.)
Doctor Odyssey had a straight-to-series order and did not have a pilot to pull footage from for the upfronts the way This Is Us trailer did for instance. Still, the delay of a trailer’s release until close to premiere date is straight out of Ryan Murphy’s showmanship playbook.
By holding off, the trailer for Doctor Odyssey was able to showcase a slew of high-profile guest stars from subsequent episodes, including Shania Twain, John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Kelsea Ballerini, Chord Overstreet and Cheyenne Jackson, along with series regulars Jackson, Phillipa Soo, Sean Teale and Johnson.
The timing also worked well as Jackson made waves with his presenting stint at the Emmys on Sunday, prompting a slew of posts by TikTokers swooning over Dawson’s Creek alum’s dashing looks.
In addition to keeping the trailer under wraps, in a typical Ryan Murphy fashion, details about the plot of the show also had not been officially released. Doctor Odyssey marks Murphy’s first new series for ABC and second overall, joining veteran 9-1-1, which moved from Fox last season.
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