Movie Box Review

For CBS on Mondays, the other networks can huff and puff and put specials on the air, but they can't blow The Eye's house down.

CBS:  Against atypical competition almost across the board, all their hits were big winners, and all within 0.2 of their last original episodes.

ABC:  Their best number of the night by far was for the umpteenth repeat of 1965's A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (although its 2.8 was still way below competitor HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER with a 4.5 on CBS).  After that, a PREP AND LANDING held the Charlie Brown audience pretty well, but YOU DESERVE IT was a disastrous 1.0, and CASTLE rebounded as best it could to a 2.0, its season low.

FOX:    The AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS were below Terra Nova's lowest score, let alone House.  

NBC:  Must we speak of this?  NBC's average for 3 hours of primetime was a 1.0, which would be unacceptable even on a Saturday.  The number of people who didn't want to watch a SING-OFF Christmas special was exceeded only by those who wanted no part of ROCK CENTER.  And there are still 2 months of Mondays until The Voice and Smash arrive...

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL has clearly jumped the shark with a 0.6, low even by CW standards.  (We'll see if the car crash that ended the midseason finale brings people back in January.)  However, HART OF DIXIE is finding an audience, again significantly up from its lead-in.

Tonight is another December hodgepodge, with repeats on CBS against new episodes on FOX, while ABC throws Middle and Suburgatory reruns into the Dancing With the Stars Results slot, and NBC regales us with a Michael Buble Christmas special for our sins.

The only shows last night with ratings north of a 3 were reruns.

FOX:  Even with weaker competition on both CBS and ABC, TERRA NOVA couldn't climb more than 0.1 from last week's season low, and with only 2 episodes left this season (the finale is a 2-hour special), time is running out.  HOUSE didn't fare much better, also up a mere 0.1 from its season low.

ABC:  Although they didn't equal Dancing With the Stars' usual rating, a combo of the classic HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and a SHREK holiday special performed well 8-9PM.  Viewers have apparently decided that YOU DESERVE IT doesn't, and the night was rounded out by a CASTLE rerun.

CBS:  Thinking of reruns, The Eye won the night with one arm tied behind its back.  With an all-repeat lineup, CBS was victorious in every half-hour of the evening.

NBC:  The season finale of THE SING-OFF couldn't come soon enough for NBC, although it did manage to climb slightly for its last performance.  Facing repeats on the other networks, ROCK CENTER also crept up a bit.

CW:  HART OF DIXIE's 0.8 was nothing to shout about, but the fact that it marked an increase of 0.2 from the waning GOSSIP GIRL was at least a bit promising.

Don't get too attached to those CG dinosaurs.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA barely bothers with those creatures these days anyway, being more concerned with dull conspiracies among humans (points to anyone who can figure out what the "time fracture" means), and it may not be showing anything for much longer.  With just a few episodes to go and a massive budget/license fee, this isn't a good time to be matching the season's lowest rating with a paltry 2.1.  HOUSE was almost as unimpressive, also tying a season low with 2.5.

ABC:  Beginning its 2-part season finale with a 1-hour episode, DANCING WITH THE STARS should hit its best rating since the season premiere even after football adjustments.  That provided a fine set-up to the new charitable game show YOU DESERVE IT, but that debut went absolutely nowhere with a lousy 2.1.  CASTLE managed to rebound from that with what should be a fairly standard number even after football is taken into account.

NBC:  Preparing for its own season finale, THE SING-OFF pretty much shuffled in place, but ROCK CENTER, soon to move to Wednesdays, could only manage a horrible 0.9.

CBS:  What are slips of a few percentage points to mighty CBS?  Every one of its shows fell from last week, and every one of its shows won its time-slot.  (Notably, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER didn't attempt to promote the major plot twist that concluded the episode--had the show pushed that development, it may well have scored higher.)

CW:  It looks like GOSSIP GIRL's glory days are over, but it did manage to climb 0.1 from last week, taking it out of the network's cellar and tying it with HART OF DIXIE.  

Monday has become a real problem for one network and a guaranteed victory for another.

FOX:  Due to the nature of Season 1 production on TERRA NOVA, it was always clear that there wouldn't be any back-order this year.  That leaves FOX with plenty of time to think about whether to renew the show for a second season.  It's become an increasingly problematic decision, because at the show's level of license fee, a 2.3 rating is below mediocre.  (However, on a corporate level FOX owns the series--which may have strong overseas value due to its genre--and that will also figure into the decision.)  It doesn't help that creatively, the show has become sluggish and uninvolving, with minimal dinosaur action and dull plots.  As to HOUSE, reports are that the network's decision on whether to make the deals necessary to bring it back will be made sooner rather than later, so the show can build to a series finale if needed, and that's looking more likely than not right now.

CBS:  Remember the concern that with Charlie Sheen gone, 2 1/2 MEN would collapse?  The show is thriving, with last night's rating more than 30% over last season's average.  That goes for HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and MIKE & MOLLY as well, and 2 BROKE GIRLS, which has eased up on the hostility jokes and become somewhat bearable, is right up there with them.  Spring will bring more challenges with THE VOICE as competition (and SMASH up against HAWAII 5-0), but for now Monday is just about ideal for CBS.

ABC:  A clear winner in the battle of the newsmagazine "gets," the special 20/20 with Gabrielle Giffords more than doubled NBC's number at 10PM.  DANCING WITH THE STARS, while still substantially below last season, is building toward its cycle conclusion.

NBC:  Even with a nationally reported scoop, the interview with allegedly monstrous former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky that was in the media all day leading up to the show, ROCK CENTER barely moved the dial.  THE SING-OFF is counting the weeks till it can fade away.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL and HART OF DIXIE were steady, but at the low end of CW's 0.6-0.8 range, particularly bad news for Gossip.

Tonight FOX will hope that the GLEE/NEW GIRL post-baseball bleeding can heal.

It was all trick and no treat last night, especially for one of the networks.

FOX:  The network can blame Halloween for distracting some of its family audience, and cite the atypical competition from ABC's Shrek special, but a 2.1 for TERRA NOVA is still quite alarming.  With only a few episodes remaining until its December season finale (FOX had previously said this season would have only 13 episodes), the network will be right to worry until it sees whether the show can rebound next week.  HOUSE was also dismal at 9PM, so the goblins were definitely out at Murdoch Manor.

NBC:  ROCK CENTER debuted with a 1.0 rating even lower than Playboy Club had been doing, which won't make the network affiliates who inherit the 10PM numbers for their local news very happy.  That was well below even the lousy SING-OFF lead-in, which garnered a 1.4.  At this point, NBC is just counting the days until Friday, when they'll find out if the Grimm premiere was a fluke or something that resembles a success.

CBS:  Everything was down (and will likely come down further in final national numbers, due to San Diego coverage of the ESPN game), but not badly.  As of now, last night's 2 1/2 MEN is still running almost 20% ahead of last season's average.

ABC:  The SHREK cartoon repeat did nothing much at 8PM (although not that far below Terra Nova), and may have contributed to DANCING WITH THE STARS' depressed rating, pushing it to a start time out of its usual slot.  The arrival of Rock Center seemed to boost CASTLE.

CW:  Their audience is doing other things on Halloween night, so as is traditional for them, they aired reruns.

The World Series continued to have little effect on the competition, although that might change on Wednesday.

CBS:  Once adjustments are made to remove local coverage of last night's football game, the line-up should be just about where it was last week.  With the successful transition to Ashton Kutcher on 2 1/2 MEN and the hit introduction of 2 BROKE GIRLS to the line-up, CBS's Monday is a night all the other networks can only aspire to.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS wasn't able to take advantage of the male-skewing World Series on FOX (probably because it's also old-skewing), while CASTLE stayed on par.

NBC:  Next week ROCK CENTER will make its debut at 10PM, but it won't find the night a friendly one, with SING-OFF heading further down every week.  So far no one seems to care about the network's PRIME SUSPECT push, but we'll see how (if) it pays off on Thursday.

FOX:  The Series scored better than TERRA NOVA/HOUSE have been doing on Mondays, but not enough to make all the schedule turmoil worthwhile.  However, Wednesday (and especially Thursday, if there's a Game 7) may be a different story.

CW:  Some nice news for HART OF DIXIE, which outscored its GOSSIP GIRL lead-in by a third and may be finding an audience.  (Although the decline of Gossip Girl, one of the network's mainstays, is a problem.)  Next week CW will preempt both shows for Ringer reruns because their target audience often has other plans on Halloween night--however, Hart of Dixie didn't seem to have gotten the memo, since their November 7 episode is pretty clearly one that was originally aimed at Halloween.

Comparisons to last Monday may be misleading, since due to baseball overrun that night, many shows aired either out of their normal timeslots or against atypical competition.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA, for example, didn't begin until almost 9PM last week, and FOX can't be pleased that it didn't come back last night all the way to the prior week's number; it was down almost 15% from 2 weeks ago.  Making matters worse, the show will be preempted next week, either by Game 5 of the World Series or by a repeat if the Series only runs 4 games.  The network will be hoping the very expensive show can return with strength in November.  Similarly, HOUSE is still 20% off both its season premiere and last season's average.

CBS:  Even with declines since its massive premiere, 2 1/2 MEN is still running 20% ahead of last season's average.  Without having to face House in the 10PM slot, HAWAII 5-0 rebounded to where it had been 2 weeks ago.  The other sitcoms were all down a bit from 2 weeks ago, but still comfortably ahead of last season (or in the case of 2 BROKE GIRLS, steady with its hour-mate).

ABC:  Both DANCING WITH THE STARS and CASTLE returned to their levels from 2 weeks ago.  

NBC:  THE SING-OFF was actually down a sliver from 2 weeks ago.  The network's PRIME SUSPECT runs are more promo than genuine programming, and we'll find out when Suspect airs on Oct. 27 if all the effort has had any effect.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL is still down about 30% from last season's average.  As Mitch Metcalf noted, the HART OF DIXIE number is likely inflated by Miami football viewers.

SUNDAY CABLE NOTES:  The rest of the numbers are in for Sunday's cable telecasts, and not surprisingly what was spectacularly good for AMC and THE WALKING DEAD was less positive for their direct scripted competition:  both BOARDWALK EMPIRE and DEXTER were down in the neighborhood of 20% from the previous week.  Of course, HBO and Showtime re-air their episodes all week, as well as making them available on other platforms, so this doesn't necessarily mean lasting damage to either series.  (For HOMELAND fans:  it held well against the last half-hour of the extended DEAD episode, although still significantly below its Dexter lead-in.)

Tonight ABC premieres MAN UP! and will hope LAST MAN STANDING sustains last week's strong premiere numbers to give it an effective lead-in, while CBS will continue to scrutinize the performance of UNFORGETTABLE.  

Baseball threw FOX--sorry--a curveball, but there was plenty of bad news for everyone last night.

FOX:  Since the playoff game lasted until 8:52PM eastern time, it isn't clear why FOX didn't just fill in the 8 minutes left in the hour and go straight to House at 9PM.  But for whatever reason, they ran their full schedule, and the result was the lowest-rated TERRA NOVA to date, and a terrible HOUSE number that came in 3rd place for the hour and ran (in preliminary ratings) 40% off last week's season premiere.  Also, a lot of angry DVR users.

ABC:  As Mitch Metcalf has noted, the current ABC number is illusory, because it includes the hugely inflated rating for Detroit, which was actually watching ESPN's football coverage.  But ABC fans should cherish these numbers while they last, because even with the inflation, DANCING WITH THE STARS was only even with last week, and CASTLE was down almost 10%.  So there isn't any good news coming.

NBC:  Can you say "catastrophe"?  THE SING-OFF actually found a way to go down more than 20% from last week, and only close friends of Maria Bello watched the repeat of PRIME SUSPECT.  It's worth noting that post-football, NBC expects Monday to be its marquee night of the week, with The Voice leading into Smash.  They're certainly not doing anything to prepare the way.

CBS:  Even The Network of Stability took a hit last night.  The only drop that amounted to more than a blip, though, was the near-20% decline for HAWAII 5-0--but that show had a good excuse, as it was facing unscheduled competition from House.  

CW:  The network sells its advertising on the basis of Woman 18-34 rather than the Adults 18-49s that the other broadcast networks use, but still:  the fact is that CW is still being outrated by many cable networks (which have the benefit of subscription fees to supplement their ad revenues).  Last night, GOSSIP GIRL was down more than 30% from last season's average, and it's not clear how the economics of the network can continue to work this way.

The news was mostly good for the networks last night--except for the one show whose news was fatal.

FOX:  If anything, FOX seems to have been the victim of its own hype this fall.  Like The X-Factor, TERRA NOVA is looking like a solid hit--just not the blockbuster the network foretold.  Its 100% retention of the premiere's 3.1 rating (slightly adjusted from Mitch Metcalf's ratings report) is exceptional, and it looks likely to be one of the highest-rated new hours of the season.  HOUSE's return was extremely solid, equal to last year's season average.  

CBS:  From 8-10PM, every show on the network's schedule--including newbie 2 BROKE GIRLS--rated a 4.3 or higher, which these days is amazing. (And even at 10PM, HAWAII 5-0 may have dipped a bit from that lofty level, but still easily won its hour.)  2 1/2 MEN's decline this week to a 6.1 continues to show the aftereffects of its gigantic premiere, but even if it fell some more, it would still be a smash. 

NBC:  This is how you find out you're about to be cancelled:  at the end of THE PLAYBOY CLUB last night, the network didn't run a promo for the following week's episode, substituting one for Wednesday's SVU instead.  With THE SING-OFF's 1.8 anchoring the night (and by "anchor," I mean pulling it down to the bottom of the ocean), NBC is pretty much throwing in the towel on Mondays for the fall:  the reruns of PRIME SUSPECT that will run in Playboy's slot for the next 3 weeks will barely show a pulse, and while the new Brian Williams newsmagazine should do better, there's a ceiling on the kind of rating a show in that genre is likely to get.  They'll wait for the return of THE VOICE and debut of SMASH after the Super Bowl to do battle for the night.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS is down a colossal 35% from last year (the casting people at the network have to be scrambling for big names they can put into the spring cycle), so CASTLE's 10% decline from last season's average is nothing to complain about.

CW:  The people who watched HART OF DIXIE's premiere clearly liked it, as the rating stayed rock-solid just like Terra Nova's.  Of course, staying rock-solid at a 0.8 isn't the same as doing it at 3.1, but the network could hardly ask more of the show than its improvement on GOSSIP GIRL's lead-in.

One network dominated all of primetime last night...

FOX:  ...and it wasn't FOX.  You can't call TERRA NOVA a disaster--a 3.1 rating (slightly adjusted from Mitch Metcalf's report) is a decent number these days, and the show did hold its audience solidly through all of the 2-hour premiere--but given the massive hype, not to mention the expense, it's a crushing disappointment.  (Read our Pilot + 1 Review.)  After a summer of giant special effects movies, were viewers tired of spectacle?  Are dinosaurs just out of style?  The FOX executives will be pondering all of that this morning, and waiting for the numbers to settle post-premiere before making any decisions.  But this is an awfully costly show (thirteen Executive Producers) for a mediocre rating.

CBS:  All hail the Eye!  The CBS Monday line-up is starting to look distinctly Must-See-TVish, as every one of its sitcoms did a terrific number last night.  HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (which had a vintage episode last night) was 25% above last year's season average, and 2 BROKE GIRLS (which I simply don't get, but good for Kat Dennings--see our Pilot + 1 Review) built on its lead; then 2 1/2 MEN, even post-premiere event, took things to a new level with a spectacular 7.2, and MIKE & MOLLY held an excellent chunk of that lead-in.  HAWAII 5-0 mostly looked good because of its fading competition, but a 3.3 is nothing to sneeze at in the 10PM slot.

NBC:  The hole just gets deeper.  With PLAYBOY CLUB slumping to a terrible 1.3, the advice here is not to get too emotionally attached.  (Take a look at our Pilot + 1 Review.)   And while SING-OFF's 1.7 was comparatively less awful, it's still mired in 4th place with nowhere to go.  The signature decision of NBC's fall may have been holding off the network's powerhouse pair of The Voice and Smash till winter--they have to be wondering now if they chose right.

ABC:  A 3.2 is a decent enough rating, and and second place for the night isn't bad, but DANCING WITH THE STARS is officially having an off-cycle, and the network will need to bring in an extremely strong cast for Spring (especially against The Voice) to avoid damaging the brand.  Castle did perfectly well holding its lead.

CW:  HART OF DIXIE not only held all of its GOSSIP GIRL lead-in, the show even built in its second half-hour, so it did all the network could have asked in its premiere.  It's just hard to get excited about a 0.8 debut.  With the arrival of Dixie, all of the CW's shows except its Thursday line-up are below a 1, and only Vampire Diaries remains able to launch a new show.  Not good.

And... they're off!  The 2011-12 broadcast TV season is underway, and already there are some clear winners and losers.

CBS:  Last night was always going to be a good night for the Eye, but the extent of the good news is remarkable.  The first un-Charlie Sheened 2 1/2 MEN was the most publicized event of the summer, and it delivered a massive 10.3 in the 18-49 demo (in comparison, May's season finale of American Idol did a 9.2).  And the decision to schedule the pilot of 2 BROKE GIRLS as a follow-up at 9:30 proved a huge success with a 7.0; whatever happens to that show now, the network will never be able to say viewers didn't give it a look.  Also great news for 2 Broke Girls:  viewers were apparently longing for the return of its real lead-in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, which had an exceptionally strong Season 7 debut with 4.9.  (Next week, though, it'll face the debut of FOX's hugely hyped Terra Nova.)  The only slightly dark cloud for the night was HAWAII 5-0's 3.4, which (in preliminary numbers) won the time slot, but couldn't sustain the night's momentum and lost over 50% of its Broke Girls' lead-in.

NBC:  Bob Greenblatt, welcome to network TV!  The opening night of his first Fall schedule couldn't have gone any worse.  The decision to push The Voice to mid-season and risk pitting THE SING-OFF against regular season competition proved disastrous, and the Peacock is now facing 2 hours every Monday of the fall with a potential sub-2 rating.  Even worse, whatever chance THE PLAYBOY CLUB had of finding a toehold was damanged by its lead-in, and with its 1.6 rating, it becomes the instant leader in the fall TV dead pool.  An awful debut is bad news for any show, but even worse for a serialized drama like Playboy, because viewers rarely gravitate to a series whose story is already underway.  If the network doesn't give up on the show quickly, look for stunt casting and other desperate measures to hype viewer interest in the coming weeks.

ABC:  Facing the CBS juggernaut, and without a giant name in this season's competition, DANCING WITH THE STARS did an OK 3.9, which was down significantly from last year's premiere.  The better news at the Alphabet was CASTLE's solid 3.3 at 10PM.  That show's number tends to come down a bit in final ratings because of Dancing overruns, but in any event the show benefited from NBC's failure in the time-slot (and a big season finale dliffhanger in May), and is now a strong player on the night.

FOX:  They're waiting till next week to launch their new shows, probably because they didn't want the 2-hour Terra Nova premiere to have to face last night's 2 1/2 Men.

CW:  On the shelf till next week.