'Devious Maids' ratings not so bueno

One thing about Lifetime’s Devious Maids that wasn’t stereotypical: The ratings.

The new drama series from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry got off to a somewhat sluggish start on Sunday night, delivering 2 million viewers for its premiere episode. By comparison, other Lifetime dramas such as Drop Dead Diva, The Client List and Army Wives have pulled numbers closer to the 3 million mark (Client and Drop Dead both had 2.8 million for their premieres).

The show follows the lives of four Latina maids working amongst the rich and crazy in SoCal. Critics have given the show mixed-to-positive reviews. Here’s EW’s reaction to the premiere, which noted “it’s refreshing to see four talented Latina actresses highlighted and given prominent roles on a primetime television series, but it is still problematic that they all play stereotypical sexy and ‘spicy’ Latina maids.”

Also Sunday night: ABC’s reality-mystery-thing Whodunnit (4 million viewers, 1.3 adults 18-49) opened soft-ish, on par with last year’s NY Med, while the two-hour debut of NBC summer drama Crossing Lines (4.4 million, 0.7) got off to a weak start in the demo.

Read more:

‘Devious Maids’ series premiere: Brace for the stereotypes

‘Whodunnit?’ premiere: ‘Clue’ meets ‘The Haunted Mansion’ and ‘Lizzie McGuire’