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 »

The only current shows releasing sets this week are Numb3rs and Top Chef, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see down at your local DVD Hut. Topping the list for me, Dan Freaking Tanna. Yes, finally, we can all watch Vega$ any time we want. If classic P.I. isn’t your style, there are also a number of collections that are worth a look, such as complete sets from Homicide, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, and Plastic Man. Other highlights include The L Word, Hawaii Five-O, and Peanuts. The complete list is after the jump. 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 »

Seriously, what the heck is going on with True Blood? Where do all of these people keep coming from? The show managed to set another series high this week, with 5.3 million viewers. That alone is cause for celebration. Even better, the DVDs continue to sell like hotcakes. In its 13th week of release, the season was still the number one TV show. That set has now racked up over $40 million in sales. It’s crazy. But that was just one of the many stories from cable last week. We also saw huge numbers for the Wizards of Waverly Place movie, records for Warehouse 13 and Burn Notice, and new seasons announced for Leverage and Drop Dead Diva. Over at the networks … well, we’re getting close to the fall premieres. Read the rest of this entry »

• For those of you who missed last night’s premiere of Top Chef: Las Vegas (clocking in at a mind-boggling hour and fifteen minutes long), you can catch it tonight on Bravo at 7:45.
• Starting at 8, NBC has its two-hour block of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. They’re all great, but I especially love this episode of Parks and Rec, “Boys Club.”
• At 9:30, you can catch the premiere of Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami, and see what all the fuss is about.
• At 10, AJ Soprano, AKA Robert Iler, guest-stars on this episode of Law & Order, about the murder of a man who owns a trucking company.
• Also at 10, back-to-back episodes of Entourage: “Fore!” with Tom Brady, and “Murphy’s Lie,” with another Sopranos alum, Jamie Lynn-Sigler.

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Bravo’s battle for kitchen dominance came to a head Wednesday night, featuring an odd collection of challengers. And really, you could have made a case for picking any of them to win it all. Stefan is probably the most skilled, but he’s also a bit of a jackass, and his confidence could get him into trouble. Hosea seemed to spend most of the season in Stefan’s shadow, but there were enough encouraging moments to suggest that based on one night, he could win as well. And Carla was the underdog from early on, but her run at the end of the competition certainly gave her a chance. So, who won? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll save who moved on to the big finale for after the jump, but that’s not my main point with this post. And it’s not the fact that my early pick to win it all, Jamie, was back this week with a shot to get back in the competition. No, far and away the best thing on my television Wednesday night was the return of Gail Simmons to the judges table. It was even better than Yves Adele Harlow escorting Sayid back to the island on Lost. Of course, that whole story is mostly just fanfic in my head, but man, there is a crossover episode I could get behind. At any rate, nothing about Toby Young ever worked for me on Top Chef, and Gail’s return has restored order to the television kitchen universe. Read the rest of this entry »