It seems the team-up of the titular heroes of Supergirl and The Flash was a magical combination, as Supergirl‘s ratings were up 30% on Monday.
Per TVLine, Supergirl season 1, episode 18, “Worlds Finest,” had 7.24 million viewers and a 1.7 share in the demo this week, which is up 21 percent and 30 percent respectively from last week. It also led all scripted series in the demo for the night.
Additionally, this is the series’ highest rating since February 8. Its ratings had been trending downward before “Worlds Finest” aired. It’s worth noting, however, that most shows’ ratings trend downward in the spring.
CBS has yet to renew Supergirl — or any of its other freshmen series — but the outlook is promising. Additionally, TV Grim Reaper — formerly the Cancellation Bear — has Supergirl as Certain to Be Renewed. Hopefully a ratings boost like this will encourage the network to go ahead and renew Supergirl for a second season and have more crossovers with The CW’s Arrow-verse in the future.
According to Supergirl and Flash executive producer Greg Berlanti, “We always wanted to do” a crossover. “From the day we cast Melissa [Benoist], the notion of her in scenes with Grant [Gustin], or someday maybe, in the best of all worlds, with Stephen [Amell], as well, it’s exciting to think of them on screen together.”
Berlanti adds, “But, a few things had to go right. We were introducing this notion of Earth-2 and the multi-verse on The Flash, and that had to work. We’ve always said, very openly, that The Flash and Arrow exist in a universe where there’s no Superman, or you would have heard about him. They would have had at least one conversation about him, and certainly Supergirl, as well. That was one thing.
“And then, there was the notion that it’s two separate networks, so it’s more challenging, in that way, because it’s not so convenient. It’s two separate cities that they shoot in. We wanted [Supergirl] to work and stand on its own on CBS, and have its own audience.”
The original plan was to “wait until the second season, but after Christmas, we came back and were planning out the final third of the year and we thought we could do it. It felt like the right time for him to enter her world and help her out. So, it all came together. We went to all of the powers that be and said, ‘I know we indicated that maybe we’d wait a little longer, but we’d really like to do this now,’ and everybody was very enthusiastic.”
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET on CBS.