Why Do People Love Good Girls?

We used Ranker Insights to figure out what it is about the NBC dramedy that fans love most — and what could be holding the show back from a larger audience.

Photo: NBC

NBC’s Good Girls, returning for a fourth season on March 7, is a fantastic dark comedy about three moms who get tired of barely scraping by and decide to rob a grocery store. It’s got three strong female leads, played by Christina Hendricks of Mad Men, Retta of Parks & Recreation, and Mae Whitman of Parenthood and Arrested Development — and a great role for Matthew Lillard as Hendricks’s cheating, scheming husband. 

Now you know how we feel about the show. But what about the greater TV viewing public? Ranker Insights uses more than 1 billion votes from pop culture fans all over the world to gauge how people feel about everything from TV shows to movies, actors, and sports stars. We decided to take a closer look at exactly what people think about Good Girls and why to determine who makes up its audience — and whether or not it can be expanded. 

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Good Girls’ Approval Rating: 54%

As of the writing of this blog post, Good Girls is featured on a total of 57 Ranker lists. Most of those lists are positive (e.g., The Funniest Shows Streaming On Netflix), and a few are negative (e.g., Current TV Shows That Basic B*****s LOVE). Altogether, the votes for Good Girls on these lists total 3,853: 2,104 of them positive (upvotes on positive lists and downvotes on negative lists) and 1,749 negative (downvotes on negative lists and upvotes on negative lists). That all adds up to an approval rating that’s a little higher than 54%.

Total Lists: 57

Total Votes: 3,853

Positive Votes: 2,104 (54.6%)

Negative Votes: 1,749 (45.4%)

It’s a positive rating, but for a high-quality show like this, it could be better. Let’s dive into which lists these votes are coming from to see what could be holding this show back.

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Good Girls Is Underrated

Of those 2,104 positive votes, 802 of them are upvotes on Ranker’s list of The Best Current TV Shows No One Is Watching, on which Good Girls is ranked #18. So 38% of positive sentiment around Good Girls is coming from people who say the show is not just generally good, but underrated. Fans of the show see it as something of a hidden gem — which means it would likely benefit from more publicity.

Fans See it as a Great Show for Women

A total of 355 of the show’s positive votes come from lists like the Best Shows on Netflix for Women and The Best 2020 Shows With Female Casts. Seventeen percent of positive votes for Good Girls are related to the show’s focus on female characters and narratives, which suggests this aspect of the show draws and retains viewers. 

Good Girls Doesn’t Rank Highly as a Drama or as a Comedy

This show is a dark comedy with plenty of punchlines, but it’s also got a complex, often dramatic plot. It’s not a goofy sitcom or a straightforwardly serious drama. That could explain why Good Girls doesn’t rank very high on either comedy and drama lists. 

Only 4% of positive votes for Good Girls comes from lists like Best TV Comedies Of The 2010s and Best TV Comedies Of 2018, and only 2% come from lists like Best Current NBC Dramas. It seems fans don’t identify the show with any particular genre, which could be a roadblock to pulling in new viewers. 

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Ranker’s data suggests Good Girls is a quality show beloved by fans, but isn’t getting the attention it deserves — possibly because new and unfamiliar viewers can’t identify the genre it belongs to. It also suggests that the show’s focus on female stars and narratives is a big part of why fans love it so much, and this quality could be used to market it to new audiences. We’ll do our part to help spread the word by letting you know that Season 4 of Good Girls premieres on March 7 on NBC!

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These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

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