Evil female alien commanders make for memorable TV
Now that I’m really getting into V, I thought I’d honor the Visitors’ leader, Anna (played with reptilian grace by Morena Baccarin), by putting together a list of TV’s memorable alien villainesses, whose insidious forces have infiltrated, assimilated, assaulted, insulted, and generally picked on the human race. Read the rest of this entry »
V – There’s more to the rebellion than we know
Last week, in my review of V, I complained a bit about the story line involving Ryan and the undercover rebellious V. This episode went quite a long way to solving that issue. With new mysteries and a little more details about the rebellion (though I would like some more), I have to admit that I’m starting to get more interested in V.
I can’t, however, say the same thing about the plot involving Tyler and Lisa. So… I just won’t even mention it any further.
Ratings Clack – Should FOX switch Fringe and Lie To Me?
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 »
V – Half this show has me intrigued, half of it has me bored
After kicking off the series in fifth gear, V kicked it back down to first or second in tonight’s episode. I know it’s only the second installment, and I’m keeping an open mind, but right now only half of the main storylines are really capturing my attention. As I see it, the show is going to be focusing on four areas as it moves forward: Erica and Father Landry and the resistance, Tyler and his fascination with Lisa the Visitors, Ryan and the traitorous Visitors, and finally, the political and media issues with Chad and Anna.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel like all of these stories are hitting their stride yet.
Ratings Clack – V gets off to a great start
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 »
V – A lot of potential, but it could go either way
After weeks of heavy advertising and two months in to the new television season, the re-imagining of V is finally here. Tonight was the first episode of the series, and boy there was a lot going on. To say that it felt rushed would be an understatement. The original series started with a long, suspense-building miniseries. This pilot episode was almost completely devoid of the slow, intriguing build up that the original featured. Instead, it was all action and introduction.
That may not necessarily be a bad thing. This show clearly has a lot of potential. I’m just not sure if that’s potential to be great, or potential to be a huge disappointment.
3, 2, 1 … Fall Season!
Gentlebeings, welcome to the 2009-2010 fall season! Oh sure, there were some season/series premieres last week — mostly on The CW, which really isn’t a network — but a majority of them start this week and continue until through October (in time for the cancellations). It’s shaping up to be an interesting season. Traditional family sitcoms are attempting a return, a Joss Whedon show is making it to a second season on FOX, and three series remakes (Melrose Place, V, Parenthood) will try to pull in respectable audiences.
Then, of course, there’s The Jay Leno Show; known to the cigar-chomping executives over at NBC as “The Great Experiment”. While Jay and the network executives are optimistic about the show’s chances, many viewers are skeptical as to whether or not the former number one rated network can make it work.
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