After the dramatic entrance of V last week, there were no similar big splash stories to lead things off this week. Then, as I was perusing the year-ago numbers, something occurred to me. It’s quite possible that FOX could improve both Monday and Thursday at 9:00 if they swapped Fringe and Lie To Me. If you look back to the initial Fringe run, it had a lot of success following House. In fact, while the House numbers are virtually unchanged from Tuesday to Monday, Fringe was holding much more of the House audience on Tuesday than Lie To Me currently is on Monday.

Example:
11/18/08: House (13.03m/5.5), Fringe (9.36m/4.2)
11/09/09: House (13.31m/5.3), Lie To Me (7.41m/3)

And that was against very similar competition. Both faced DWTS on ABC, which was pretty much a wash. NBC was greatly improved against Fringe with Biggest Loser (7.84m/3.3), as opposed to Trauma (5.35m/1.8). And CBS was mixed, with The Mentalist (15.83m/3.5) trailing the Men/Big Bang hour (13.62m/4.6) in the demo.

Now we look at where we are this season. Fringe did manage something of a rebound this week, finishing with (5.91m/2.2) on Thursday. That’s still a distant fourth place, and should find the show on the hot seat at the end of the season. It would, obviously, do better on Monday following House. The question is, would it do better than the (7.41m/3) that Lie To Me is currently offering? I think it would.

On the other side of that coin, while I’m not quite as confident about the move of Lie To Me to Thursday, I do still see the potential for it to outperform the current Fringe numbers. That bar has been set, after all, rather low. It would likely take a  hit in the move, but the end result would be that Thursday at 9:00 is stronger as well. Just something to think about. The usual numbers junk is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about you, but I was very excited for this week’s episode of Curb, and I was not disappointed.

From the Monk’s Cafe and Jerry’s apartment stage sets, to Newman (Wayne Knight) walking through Jerry’s door, it felt like old friends getting together again. Which it was. All that was sorely missed, by me, was Jerry Stiller. Where are you, Frank?

Each of the main characters got some time in with Larry, and only Julia Louis-Dreyfus didn’t appear to require much of him. Jason Alexander got right in his face, Michael Richards bemoaned an ailment, and Jerry and Larry enjoyed some great — I’m assuming ad-libbed — quality time together. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll take “people we got an earful from this week” for two hundred!

I was going back and forth through the quotes submitted by our writers this week, and I couldn’t quite understand why the haul seemed so light. Then it dawned on me: ABC didn’t air its new Wednesday night comedy lineup this week. Can you believe how quickly those three shows (sorry Hank!) have entered our pop-culture? Yowza.

30 Rock

“Alright hosers: I want all 12 of us fighting for every meter on all three downs. And we’re gonna make this a Boxing Day the Prime Minister will never forget.” – Danny, in his Canadian football movie

“I feel about as useless as a mom’s college degree.” – Kenneth, on his problem with Danny Read the rest of this entry »

Last night was definitely a strong entry from Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I was not only impressed with how cute most of the stories were, but also with how well everything tied together in the end. Plus we got Jerry Seinfeld!

It caught me by surprise in the season seven premiere to learn that Jeff was a serial adulterer, and I was glad that Susie was finally going to catch him after finding panties in his glove compartment. And yet I felt much more satisfied at the way things played out in the end; from foreign panties to stolen pants to West Side Story to lemonade — nicely done! Read the rest of this entry »

The World Series was the big ratings winner last week, but with New York involved, everyone kind of expected that, right? What nobody expected — most notably ABC — was the success of the V premiere. The numbers weren’t just good. It was the highest rated scripted program on the network, topping the Housewives and Grey’s. Even better, the V demo rating was the highest for a scripted show on any of the networks.  Someone at ABC has to be kicking themselves for only ordering four episodes of V, while they continue to crank out more Hanks than they know what to do with. Read the rest of this entry »

In part, I am at fault. In fact, those of us tuning in for Seinfeld are all partly to blame. How did we not see it coming? The bait and switch is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and here we are, caught with our pants down in the glare of the light shining off of Larry’s head.

Of course we weren’t about to be spoon-fed another season of Seinfeld. They’re guesting on Curb; the reunion show is a plot–point; but is it all that’s currently going on in Larry David’s life? Of course not. This week’s attention to it? Larry let his family know that they were doing a read-through next week. And that was it for the episode. Read the rest of this entry »

What a night! First Jerry Seinfeld appeared on Curb, and then the Yankees won the ALCS, on their way to a lock of a World Series championship! My television was hopping!

The performance that caught me by surprise, between the two, was Seinfeld on Curb … I had no idea how great the chemistry between two people could be until seeing Larry and Jerry just having some fun. And the most telling part was Larry’s laugh. I have never heard it so authentic, a clear sign that they both enjoy working together, and that a lot of what we witnessed between the two was ad-libbed. It was a beautiful thing. Read the rest of this entry »