Movie Box Review

Adieu, GIFTED MAN.

CBS:  The season finale of A GIFTED MAN ticked up a bit to a 1.4, but while that would be great news for, say, Fringe, don't get your hopes up for Man's renewal.  A far more telling sign:  we've talked here before about "second position" pilot deals for actors, and Gifted Man's female lead Rachelle Levebre just signed for one produced by Man's own production company (and that being CBS Studios, not unacquainted with its network).  CBS won the night's other hours (UNDERCOVER BOSS slightly up, BLUE BLOODS even) to tie for the evening win.

ABC:  SHARK TANK was down slightly at 8PM, but after that the night improved sharply, with 0.3 and 0.4 respective rises for PRIMETIME and 20/20, pulling the network to a tie for the night.

NBC:  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?, with a Reba McEntire episode (and possibly benefiting as well from the repeat on FOX) leaped half a ratings point from last week (although that still put it in 3d place for the hour), which helped propel GRIMM up 0.2 to tie for the lead at 9PM.  DATELINE lost the newsmagazine battle and fell to 3d place at 10PM.

FOX::  With February sweeps over, the network slipped into repeats, falling into 4th place for the night with KITCHEN NIGHTMARES.

CW:  Twin 0.3 ratings for repeats of NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL.

CW has announced the line-up for its 2011/12 regular season finales, as well as a late-season premiere:

First to exit will be ONE TREE HILL, which winds up its 9 seasons on April 4 with a 2-hour special.

On April 17, RINGER will be done for the season (and maybe longer).  Starting April 24, its timeslot will be filled by the new LA COMPLEX, which sounds like the return of the return of Melrose Place:  a group of Hollywood wannabes all live in the same apartment building, and no doubt suds fly.

The remainder of the network's shows end in mid- to late-May.

May 10:  THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and THE SECRET CIRCLE

May 14:  GOSSIP GIRL and HART OF DIXIE

May 15:  90210

May 18:  NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL

May 29:  LA COMPLEX

May 30:  AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

FRINGE, having watched Monty Python & the Holy Grail, shouts "I'm not dead!" as the gravediggers try to take it away.

CBS:  An extremely soft win for the night (1.6 average).  UNDERCOVER BOSS was down 0.4 from its season premiere, A GIFTED MAN (in its penultimate episode, at least for this season) was down 0.2, and only BLUE BLOODS was up a slight 0.1 from last week, when it aired against ABC's Whitney Houston tribute.

FOX:  FRINGE was up 0.1, and while that doesn't sound like much (and isn't), at least it was in a tightly squeezed pack at 9PM (1.5-1.4-1.3-1.2).  The show now takes 4 weeks off, to return at the end of March with what it hopes won't be its final 8 episodes in this timeline and universe.  

NBC:  GRIMM continues to be a very niche success, at the top of that 9PM scrum by a bare 0.1 and showing no signs that it could thrive in the tougher competition that exists Sun-Thurs.  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? is flopping at 8PM with a 1.0, and DATELINE barely won the newsmagazine battle at 10PM by 0.1.

ABC:  The network was in 2d place by only 0.1 at both 8PM and 9PM (SHARK TANK particularly benefited from Undercover Boss' decline), but 20/20 slumped without the buzz of the Whitney Houston story.

CW:  Repeats, although it's worth nothing that the 0.4 scored by NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL was only 0.1 below what some of the network's new episodes have been rating.

Tonight is repeat hell, except for NBC's burn-off of THE FIRM episodes (another kind of hell).  Tomorrow night is likely to be joyful for fans of black-and-white silent French films, and depressing for everyone else.  (It's a mark of just how dreary this year's Oscars are that the media has spent 2 days obsessing about Sacha Baron Cohen's publicity stunt for his new movie instead of the awards.)  All the other broadcast networks are staying away, as are many scripted cable locales, with the exceptions of giant hit WALKING DEAD on AMC, and enormous flop LUCK on HBO.

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Not a great night for bubble shows.

CBS:  On a night where CSI NY and BLUE BLOODS both won their hours and were up slightly from last week, A GIFTED MAN went down 0.1 and tied for 3rd place at 8PM.

FOX:  KITCHEN NIGHTMARES and FRINGE were both down 0.1 from last week, but while that still left Kitchen comfortably in 2d place for its hour, Fringe matched a series low 1.1 and continued to make it hard for FOX to consider renewing it.

NBC:  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, with a heavily-promoted "Marisa Tomei murder mystery" episode, held steady with its season premiere, and then things got even better.  GRIMM was up 0.2 from last week, just 0.1 from the lead in its hour, and DATELINE (some big story/interview this week?) was up a whopping 0.4 from last week, beating out 20/20.

ABC:  SHARK TANK got the night off to a great start, up 0.3 for the week and winning the 8PM slot.  PRIMETIME was up 0.1, and while that was only enough for 3rd place at 9PM, it was a closely-bunched trio.  But then 20/20 fell flat at 10PM, down 0.3 from last week.

CW:  NIKITA held at a 0.5, and although SUPERNATURAL was down 0.1, its 0.7 is still solid for CW.

Tomorrow night's big event is the GRAMMYS, the one night of the year CBS pretends it's hip.  The show scored a 9.9 last year (up a bit from the year before), and faces all-new episodes on ABC and FOX, plus a 2-hour FEAR FACTOR special on NBC.

America wasn't in the mood for scripted drama.

NBC:  The network replaced the deceased Chuck with the reality show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? and could only pull a 4th place 1.1 in the hour (admittedly a bit better than Chuck was doing, and probably at a lower price).  GRIMM had a bad week, even though it tied for 2d in its hour--it matched its season low 1.4, down 0.4 from its last original.

FOX:  KITCHEN NIGHTMARES won its hour with a 1.6, but then FRINGE plunged to a 1.1 despite airing one of the season's best episodes, tying its season low.

CBS: The network tied for the win on the night, but A GIFTED MAN, CSI NY and BLUE BLOODS were all down slightly from their last original episodes.

ABC:  Shared the win, sparked by a 20/20 that tied Blue Bloods for the lead at 10PM.  PRIMETIME, though, was down 0.3 from last week.

CW:  Another pair of tied season lows for NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL. 

Not a lot of viewer enthusiasm on a night when nothing topped a 1.8.

NBC:  CHUCK continued to lurch toward its January 27 finale with a 0.9.  The network's issue comes at 9PM:  one obvious move would be to yank the horribly rated THE FIRM off Thursday and put GRIMM in that slot, but Grimm hit a series low 1.4 last night, making it harder and harder to consider the show a "hit," even on NBC.  Leave Grimm on Friday where not much is expected from it (but where returns are low), or try to make it more of a mainstream success (and risk losing it altogether)?  Tough call.  DATELINE wound up the night with an unimpressive 3rd place finish.

ABC:  A tie for the night's win, sparked by the final regular-series hour of EXTREME MAKEOVER:  HOME EDITION and a Madonna interview on 20/20 that both gave the network a 1.7 in their hours (tying for 1st place at 9PM, 2d place by 0.1 at 10PM), following a 1.4 for the first hour of the Extreme Makeover finale. 

CBS:  Shared 1st place for the night, with a 1.3 for A GIFTED MAN at 8PM but better results the rest of the night.

FOX:  KITCHEN NIGHTMARES started the night off well with a 1.7 that won the 8PM hour, but then FRINGE fell to 4th place at 9PM, tying its 1.1 series low.  Let's hope the producers have an endgame in mind for the rest of this season, because the show's tenuous lease on life may be nearing an end.

CW:  Both NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL were down from last week to 0.5 and 0.6, respectively.

Saturday night will be dominated, possibly to a historic extent, by CBS's coverage of the Tim Tebow/Tom Brady Armageddon Bowl.  ABC will try to zig a little bit to that massive zag by airing the Miss America pageant.  In late night, Daniel Radcliffe (who has a movie opening) will test his post-Harry Potter appeal by hosting Saturday Night Live, with music guest Lana Del Rey.  Sunday will feature debuts by CBS's Undercover Boss and FOX's animated version of Napoleon Dynamite, but the night's big event will be NBC's Ricky Gervais-hosted Golden Globes.

A night of virtually all-new programming brought in plenty of viewers.

CBS:  Back with new episodes for the first time in over a month, the network was up across the board by 0.2-0.4.  On a night where football reigned, that didn't win any hours, but bodes very well for when the atypical competition is gone.

NBC:  Even poor CHUCK got an upswing as it enters its final month of existence, albeit to a 1.0.  The night's only rerun, GRIMM, couldn't even beat CW in its hour.

CW:  Both NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL were up 0.1 from their pre-hiatus episodes, giving them solid numbers for that network.

ABC:  EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION, on the verge of fading into non-regular programming, was up to 1.4-1.6 over its 2 hours.  With a new Blue Bloods on hand at 10PM, 20/20 fell into 4th place (because FOX was still airing its game) for its hour.

FOX:  The COTTON BOWL didn't score a huge number (its final rating, probably somewhere around a 3, will be determined early next week when national numbers are released), but it was strong enough to win every hour of the night.

Sunday's schedule will bring plenty to keep an eye on:  CBS will be all new (and will start the night with a sure-to-be-massive overrun from the Denver/Pittsburgh NFL playoff game), ABC and FOX are also stocked with fresh episodes, and NBC debuts its much-hyped series version of THE FIRM.  But a lot of the action will also be taking place elsewhere, as Showtime debuts HOUSE OF LIES and brings back SHAMELESS  and CALIFORNICATION, and PBS, of all networks, achieves relevance with the return of the beloved DOWNTON ABBEY.  

It turns out that while Americans are football crazy, they're not crazy.

FOX:  The first-ever PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP GAME, in which UCLA was never close to nationally-ranked Oregon, could only manage a dismal 1.4 rating in 18-49s (although given the West Coast focus of the game, that could come up in final national ratings).  On a night when hardly anyone was watching network TV, though, that was enough to tie CBS for the lead.

CBS:   A GIFTED MAN, CSI NY and BLUE BLOODS were all down, with none scoring above a 1.6, but that still won every timeslot except 8PM.

NBC:  One hopes that whatever advertiser deal NBC made to put GAME OF YOUR LIFE on their air and disrupt the run of Grimm was worth it, because the TV-movie did a genuinely pitiful 0.5 rating.  That lowered DATELINE to a 1.0.

ABC:  EXTREME MAKEOVER was down at 8PM and even at 9PM, then a Beyonce interview on 20/20 (plus the hit Dateline took) provided a marginal benefit at 10PM.

CW:  No one cared about NIKITA's midseason finale at 8PM, as the show fell to a 0.5.  SUPERNATURAL recovered at 9PM to a 0.7, which is OK by CW standards.

Something unusual for NBC these days:  good news.

NBC:  A 1.6 rating may not sound like anything to celebrate, but it's a pretty good number for Friday night (only one show all evening did better last night).  More importantly, it represented a stable hold for GRIMM from last week, and it was good enough to tie CBS for the lead in its hour.  That's practically enough for a celebration down Lankershim Avenue outside NBC's offices.  One cautionary note:  Grimm won't air again for at least 3 weeks, with preemptions on both of the next 2 Fridays.  As FOX can testify, those kinds of breaks can wreak havoc with new shows.  

FOX:  FRINGE, possibly feeling the weight of Grimm's presence in its timeslot, held at its series low 1.1 rating after KITCHEN NIGHTMARES won the 8PM hour.

CBS:  The highest rated show of the night was BLUE BLOODS, locking up the nightly win.  Even the soon-to-disappear A GIFTED MAN was only 0.1 off the lead at 8PM.

ABC:  Third place in every hour, although EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME EDITION was up nicely from last week.

CW:  Both NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL were within the 0.6-0.8 CW window.

Sunday night will be disrupted by the AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS on ABC.  Last year's awards did a 4.3 in 18-49s, which was down substantially from the 5.5 the show had done the year before.

The small fluttering bit of NBC's fall that was still breathing may have started to die last night.

NBC:  GRIMM didn't win its timeslot last night, after another 15% drop.  On Friday night, a 1.5 is still a decent number (good enough for 2d place in the 9PM hour last night), but the show's momentum is clearly moving the wrong way, and the network will be hard-pressed to justify calling the show a "hit"--not that that's likely to stop them.  CHUCK continued its creep to the TV graveyard 

CBS:  A GIFTED MAN's 1.2 was on par with its season track record and good enough for 2d place in its timeslot, but the network will have to decide very soon whether that's good enough to survive.  BLUE BLOODS took a hit at 10PM, possibly because of a promotable 20/20 on ABC.

FOX:  FRINGE hit a series low 1.1, and that's low indeed.  The series has a full season order, so it'll have plenty of time to see how Grimm plays out before there's any need to panic.  KITCHEN NIGHTMARES had an easy win at 8PM.

ABC:  EXTREME MAKEOVER was nowhere to be found at 8PM (just 0.2 above Nikita on the CW), but the 10PM 20/20 was way up over last week.

CW:  Both NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL were within the 0.6-0.8 CW norm.

A quiet night, but there was some stirrings of change thanks to ABC.

ABC:  EXTREME MAKEOVER:  HOME EDITION made its Friday debut (it will ultimately be joined by Shark Tank), and while the 8PM episode didn't do much, the show zoomed forward at 9PM to come within 0.1 of CSI NY.  That was followed by a promotable 20/20 (interview with a Bernie Madoff relative), which made the most of its lead-in to take the hour.

CBS:  Despite the ABC onslaught, their numbers remained very solid (although in A GIFTED MAN's case, at a low level), with nothing moving more than 0.1 from last week.  

NBC:  Next week, the network will make its real Friday push with the debuts of CHUCK and GRIMM.  8PM remained low-rated reruns, but DATELINE was bruised by the ABC shows, down by a third from last week.  (One sidelight to NBC's decision to push the Grimm premiere by a week is that critics are by and large ignoring the delay and reviewing the show this weekend, partly because it ties in so well with their reviews of Sunday's similarly-themed Once Upon A Time.  The reviews have been mixed, so this may not end up meaning much, but as a result, when Grimm really does arrive next week, comparatively few reviews will run in the media to greet it.)

FOX:  KITCHEN NIGHTMARES won its hour steadily, and the network ran a repeat of FRINGE at 9PM.

CW:  NIKITA was up, SUPERNATURAL was down, but in both cases by only 0.1, so hard to make any judgments.

Fridays are quiet in any case, but with 2 of the networks waiting to launch their "real" schedules, last night was nearly inaudible.

CBS:  Although A GIFTED MAN upticked slightly last night, it seems clear that the show won't reach the level of the network's other Friday shows (and the competition is about to get tougher).  CBS will have to decide whether they can live with those numbers.

FOX:  The network has allowed FRINGE to survive with ratings at the current level; we'll find out in the next few weeks if the show can sustain there against the new rivals about to appear in its timeslot.

NBC:  Biding its time until GRIMM and CHUCK arrive in 2 weeks.

ABC:  Biding its time until EXTREME MAKEOVER arrives next Friday (and then SHARK TANK the following week), although they have to be gratified that their LAST MAN STANDING reruns more than doubled NBC's rerun combo of THE OFFICE/PARKS & REC.  That bodes well for next Tuesday's rating.

CW:  When you're scoring a 0.5 like NIKITA did last week, a 0.6 can seem like good times.

Fridays are only half a real night for the broadcast networks right now, so it stands to reason that they get only half the ratings.

CBS:  Will the network accept a 1.2 from A GIFTED MAN?  (And, to be fair, along with it an older audience that gives the show double the all-ages number of anything else in the slot.)  CBS doesn't have an enormous bench of 1-hours for midseason, so the answer probably hinges on whether there's a show airing elsewhere in the week that they want to move to Fridays.  We probably won't know that for a some time yet.  Even though BLUE BLOODS and CSI NY are winning their hours, their 18-49 numbers are down 10% and 20%, respectively, from last season.

FOX:  FRINGE stopped the bleeding, and the network seems to be OK with it at its current 1.3, so fans can breathe easy for another week.

NBC:  In a holding pattern until CHUCK and GRIMM debut on October 28.  It's interesting to note, though, that for the next couple of weeks Whitney will be airing 3x per week on the network:  original episodes on Thursdays, and reruns on Wednesdays and Fridays.

ABC:  Holding pattern until EXTREME MAKEOVER and SHARK TANK arrive later this month.

CW:  Even by the CW's standards, it doesn't seem likely NIKITA can survive very long with a 0.5.  Creatively, the show has been adrift this year too, with all the characters pursuing separate ends that make the show feel more like a procedural than ever.

It being a Friday, not a single show on network television could even manage a 2 rating in 18-49s.  Even within that narrow radius, though, there was room to be a loser.

CBS:  A GIFTED MAN (see our Pilot + 1 Review) had little room to fall after a blah debut, and now it has none at all:  its 14% drop from the premiere isn't a bad retention, but its 1.2 rating is considerably lower than anything else on the network's Friday, and although the show easily wins the timeslot with older viewers, it may be doomed if it drops any lower.  BLUE BLOODS and CSI:  NY held up the flag for original scripted programming on Fridays.

FOX:  FRINGE's 1.2 was a bad 20% drop from the season premiere, and the show is again stepping dangerously close to the area where FOX will finally give up on it.

NBC:  The network again went the promo route in the night's first hour, repeating UP ALL NIGHT and WHITNEY to negligible results.  DATELINE was down considerably from last week, but still pulled a decent number for 2 hours.

ABC:  Promo runs of MODERN FAMILY, SUBURGATORY and PAN AM at least hit a 1.0 or more, but of course those shows were more successful than NBC's to begin with.  With a weaker Dateline as competition, 20/20 even edged up a bit.

8PM:  Devotees of CHUCK, never numerous but very loyal, won't want to miss the series' final 13 episodes.  And there's not much to stop them:  A GIFTED MAN is worthy of some attention because of the high level of talent involved (director Jonathan Demme, writer Susannah Grant, star Patrick Wilson), but its promo looked like gauzy supernatural hearts and flowers, and while NIKITA got off to a good start last season, it got tangled in its own mythology and the drama petered out.


9PM:  In what seems to be the Mutually Assured Destruction Bowl of Fall 2011, NBC's fantasy GRIMM goes against the multi-dimensional (and now time-travelling) FRINGE and the veteran horror show SUPERNATURAL.  Probably all this just means good news for CSI NEW YORK, but in terms of quality, FRINGE  has gotten better and better as it's gone along, and GRIMM at least looks intriguing.

10PM:  A timeslot only for Tom Selleck fans and newsmagazine junkies.  The longer-term question for the hour is whether the aftermarket value of BLUE BLOODS is high enough to justify its much greater cost compared to 20/20 and DATELINE, when the ratings of all 3 are likely to be more or less even.

WHAT TO WATCH THE REST OF THE WEEK:
ALSO SEE MITCH METCALF'S PREDICTIONS OF FALL 2011 RATINGS: