FlashForward is one of the more interesting shows of the new season where ratings are concerned. On the one hand, so far it has been a huge upgrade for the 8-9 spot on ABC. And while it has been surpassed by Survivor, it does continue to hold off Bones in the demo. On the other hand, the ratings don’t seem to be settled yet, which makes each week a new adventure. This week, the yo-yo headed back up. What will next week bring? One can only guess. I continue to think that it will eventually be passed up by the fiercely loyal Bones audience at some point, finding its place as the number 3 show in the hour. Elsewhere this week, there was good news for Dancing With The Stars, NCIS, Law & Order, So You Think You Can Dance, and Smallville. The news wasn’t so good for Hank, Parks & Recreation, Three Rivers, or Melrose Place.

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Just a few weeks ago, I absently wondered how the writers planned to dovetail a lot of aimless wandering into season-ending cliffhangers on Army Wives. Well, not only did they do so, but they managed to give each and every player a question for us to ponder over the hiatus. Well, almost.

Roxy and Trevor are “worried about money,” but the show’s website hyped that more than the episode did … I don’t think I would have realized that that was their “thing” had I not been looking at the episode summary. Sure, there’s the baby, but that’s more a development — and plot for next season — than anything else. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a strange week for ratings. Brett Favre playing against Green Bay made for a huge Monday Night Football (21.84m/9) audience on ESPN. And then the baseball playoffs ran through the rest of the week, calling a lot of the seemingly odd drops in viewers into question. Despite that increased competition, there was some good news to be had. The Biggest Loser, Bones, The Office, Lie To Me, Castle, and The Simpsons all managed to make gains week-to-week. Dollhouse also got in the game, stopping a four episode streak of series lows. On the other side, it’s starting to look like ER took all of it’s viewers with it when it left. The premiere numbers for Three Rivers were not good, and NBC’s dueling medical dramas continue to struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

Things were kind of drama-light for the penultimate episode of Army Wive’s third season, don’t you think? Viola (Tonya Pinkins) can sing! A charity golf tournament! Rah, rah! By the way … is Denise a snob? That was definitely an ugly side of her, which must be hard work for Catherine Bell.

And, at the risk of sounding totally stereotypical, is Denise a middle-aged man? A major life-crisis, a new (okay, in her case just “a”) career, a motorcycle, an obsession with golf … did the writers want another boy, and decide to force Denise to be their surrogate?

But just as things settled into ho-hum, we got slammed over the head from our left flank (military jargon!). Read the rest of this entry »

Week two of the full-tilt-boogie season brought with it some interesting things, including premieres for Animation Domination, The Amazing Race, Trauma, Hank, and The Middle. We also saw more huge numbers from House, NCIS, and Grey’s. But after all of that, the most interesting story again comes from the show with the worst ratings on all of the big four networks, Dollhouse. After season two premiered to a series low last week, things got even worse. Episode two just barely cleared the 2 million viewer bar, while falling below a 1 in the demo. Reached for comment, my BFF Jill said, “OMG! RLY!?”

Yes, really. The situation is dire. Even the hardcore Whedonites are now at DEFCON 1. Someone has got word that the show could be in danger of being pulled from the air. I don’t know anything more than they do about that, but I would expect it to get one more shot this Friday, before baseball takes over. If episode three doesn’t show some sort of improvement though, I wouldn’t be surprised if baseball makes way for a series of House and Bones repeats on Fridays at 9. Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, I was very glad to get back to our regularly scheduled Army Wives this week. Not to take anything away from those of you who enjoyed last week’s divergence, but clearly there was a lot of drama to get to this week, and I for one was anxiously awaiting it.

I like that Pamela has something interesting going on in her life, with Chase and his torture/helicopter crash drama, but don’t you think she’s pushing a bit too much? I understand that she’s frustrated, and that she feels in general that he shuts her out, but think about it this way: if he was captured and tortured, for any amount of time, shouldn’t she give him the space to deal with it however he needs to, instead of hounding him for the details?

No, he shouldn’t waste his limited time at home with his family, but maybe Chase is trying to distance himself from them now that he’s come so close to the end. Or maybe he just needs to breath a little bit. Either way, I think Pamela was way out of line getting on his case like that. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Army Wives scribes,

What the mother of crap (Friends!) was Sunday night’s episode? A flashback episode … other people’s flashbacks, with our actors playing other roles? Really? Did you forget the high-pitched drama at the end of last week when Joan got “the call?”

I can’t imagine a single reason for this divergence, other than that it was aired out of sequence. Even so, what was your point? To show us how wives lost their husbands in World War II? Part of me is saying, “Just watch as this random episode comes back to play a major role in what’s to come before this season ends.” Even if that’s true, it does nothing for me now. Read the rest of this entry »