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 »

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 »

No wonder Prison Break got the axe … too harsh? (Just kidding, folks!) Sorry, but Wentworth Miller — as Detective Nate Kendal — was really terrible on last night’s premiere of Law & Order: SVU. I’ve never seen Prison Break, so I have no idea, but he was definitely not good here.

I’m generally not wild about the guest detectives SVU utilizes. I understand that after this long, and the repetitive nature of their cases, they need to mix it up, but the visiting cops usually need to come in with some convoluted, tortured-soul back-story, which, in the short time allotted them, just seems overcooked. Plus many of them just don’t click on the show (see Miller). His bad turn wasn’t helped any by a terrible new ADA, Sonny Paxton (Christine Lahti), who thankfully is not long for the season. Read the rest of this entry »

One summer, however many years ago, my wife and I discovered that our TiVo had a vast wasteland where recorded items should be — remember those summer days of old? Fearing the outdoors, and activities, we decided to try a number of series that were airing, in endless syndication, in advance of the new fall season. That’s how we picked up Criminal Minds, Cold Case, and NCIS.

It’s also how I began watching Law & Order: SVU (my wife added The Closer to her list that summer). At the time, I actually tried all three incarnations of Law & Order — hell, we even gave Conviction a shot when it aired live. But with cookie-cutter shows, it’s the characters that stand the lone chance of drawing you in. And SVU has quite a cast of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday is an interesting night. Despite being a night of dramatically lower ratings for so many shows, it’s still one of the most fascinating nights where the numbers are concerned. Last season, that had much to do with the performance, or lack thereof, we saw from Dollhouse, Terminator:TSCC, and Prison Break on FOX. Dollhouse will still figure in heavily this year, but the other networks have also made some interesting moves. The big questions: Has anything changed for Dollhouse? Does the move to Friday spell the end for Betty and Clark? And has CBS finally found a solution for 9:00 with Medium?

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The summer season is getting under way now. Here’s a handy guide of what’s to come:

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

• It hasn’t even debuted yet and I’m already annoyed with NBC’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. I say get them all out of there, and off my screen before the two-hour premiere. (Mon. 8pm)
• But if you can’t get enough of Heidi Montag and Spender Pratt, you can flip over to MTV and see “Speidi’s Wedding Unveiled” in a special presentation of The Hills. (Mon. 11pm)
• Scare tactics are alive and well on ABC’s Earth 2100, which takes a speculative look at how we might just wipe ourselves out in the next 100 years. It WILL happen. Bob Woodruff says so. (Tue. 9pm)
• The following night NBC takes us into the Presidency with Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports. I wonder if he’ll ask how we’re going to avert oblivion in the next century. (Wed. 9pm)
• Just in time for Land of the Lost, find out how Will Ferrell would really fare in the wild as he takes it on with Bear Grylls in a special Man vs. Wild on Discovery (Tue. 10pm)
• The NBA Finals kick off with a Jimmy Kimmel special on ABC before the Orlando Magic take on the Los Angeles Lakers. (Thu. 8pm)
• It’s The Tony Awards in HD for the first time on CBS, and it’s hosted by NPH himself, Neil Patrick Harris! (Sun. 8pm)
• Worst Week is back to burn off its remaining episodes on CBS (Sat. 8:30pm)

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A bit of a dicey question, that. Over the course of this past week, conversations have abounded about the new NCIS spin-off, a show that utilized the previous two episodes of NCIS to potentially launch itself onto the new CBS fall lineup.

Much of the discussion has focused on Grey’s Anatomy’s spin-off, Private Practice, as well as on NCIS itself, product of good old JAG. Which one did a better job? Forgetting about the obvious success of one over the other (not naming names), each show attempted to go about birthing their progeny in a different way.

For JAG, it was the old introduce new characters during an episode (Gibbs, Ducky and Abby), who will later helm the new series. For Grey’s Anatomy, it was send a character (Addison) to a new location and have them move there for their new show.

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