Shows must hate being on NBC. It’s not enough that nobody actually watches the shows on NBC, but then the bigwigs force their programs into these silly theme weeks. A month ago, all their shows were about volunteering, and this week they featured stories about going green. Certainly these are altruistic causes, and they don’t bother me as much as they surely bother others, but I mostly feel bad for the writers who have to work these stories into their shows.

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Or, put another way, is there only so much funny out there in TV land that if another success story shows up, or something already on the air gets better, everything else is destined to get worse?

Maybe it’s that as individual viewers we’re only allotted so much laughing in a week. I don’t know which is the case … all I know is that, week in and week out, some of my favorite sitcoms are consistently falling flat. Read the rest of this entry »

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’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 »

Considering how I once felt about both of them, it’s surprising that I actually am enjoying the team of Tracy and Jenna. Actually, considering how Jenna once felt about Tracy, it’s surprising that they’re enjoying one another. But I suppose you do what you must when faced with a common enemy: a new star on your show.

This is actually a very clever idea that 30 Rock is employing. As it’s appeared to me up to this point, the show is adding a cast member by utilizing the need fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has for a new cast member. I don’t know if cast expansion has ever been more natural — well, in a general sense. But adding a street-performing robot? 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 »

I have missed the Supernatural boat. Everyone tells me what a great show it is, but I’ve never taken the time. If this week’s lead quote is any indication, I sure am missing out. The week before the start of November Sweeps also brings us some good quotes from Modern Family and Community. Next week, however, I promise the return of Glee!

Supernatural

“You gotta calm down.” — Sam
“Calm down? I’m wearing sunglasses at night!! You know who does that? No talent douche bags! I hate this game! I hate that we’re in a procedural cop show and you want to know to know why … because I hate procedural cop shows! There’s like 300 of them on television and they’re all the freaking same. It’s, ‘Oh, plane crashed here.’ Oh shut up!” — Dean

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