Movie Box Review

Viewers could tell that REVENGE wasn't FOR REAL.

ABC:  Serialized dramas repeat notoriously badly, so the network had the clever idea of filling in the spring schedule gap with a "news" show about true-life crimes that presumably are similar to those in the show, albeit without Emily Van Camp or Madeleine Stowe.  The resulting REVENGE FOR REAL was probably about where ABC expected, a full ratings point down from real Revenge episodes, but a little higher than repeats have been scoring.  The network tried to give For Real a lead-in with a new episode of HAPPY ENDINGS, but that ended up unnecessarily burning off a fresh (and funny, particularly for John Hughes fans) Happy episode, which hit a season low and didn't do any better coming out of a MODERN FAMILY repeat than a Happy rerun would have done. 

NBC:  Oh, NBC Wednesday, what's to be done with you?  Last night's new episodes of WHITNEY and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA could no more than tie the repeats on ABC of THE MIDDLE and SUBURGATORY that aired against them.  Then the network started its 2-week experiment of moving SVU reruns to 9PM (until BENT--very temporarily--takes the slot), which was a catastrophe that resulted in a previously unimaginable (even for a rerun) 1.0 rating for SVU, which just a couple of years ago was one of the most reliably repeating series on the schedule.  To the extent there's a bright side to any of this, the move of ROCK CENTER to 10PM supercharged that show all the way to a 1.0 rating, which was pathetically just 0.1 below its series high.  

FOX:  The season's song played again for AMERICAN IDOL, as it increased from last week (against mostly repeats on the other networks), but remained more than 35% below last year's numbers.

CBS:  SURVIVOR may also have benefited from the repeat competition and hit a cycle high.  At 10PM, a repeat CSI handily beat both of the new (albeit unscripted) shows on the other networks.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL continued to hold at a 0.7, while AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, perhaps benefiting from the large number of viewers for Monday's repeat of its season premiere, ticked up 0.1 to 0.6 (still far below last season).

Tonight NBC will sleeplessly await the Week 2 ratings for AWAKE, which this week has to face a new THE MENTALIST.  FOX airs the last Thursday night episode of THE FINDER before it's shipped off to Fridays, and only ABC is in repeats.

February Sweeps go out not with a bang, but with the other thing.

ABC:  The first "midseason arc" episode of REVENGE looked almost exactly like all the other episodes, so it was fitting that the rating stayed even.  The show will now take a break from fresh episodes until the end-of-season push in April.  (Meanwhile, the network will air REVENGE FOR REAL, some kind of "ABC News" concoction about actual rich-people crimes.  If it works, no doubt NBC is poised to launch Smash For Real.)  Elsewhere, even with a 2-hour Idol as competition, HAPPY ENDINGS had a very nice 0.4 bump over the last 2 weeks--and continued to pile up its pre-Community Random Pop Culture Reference points with a nod to Krippendorf's Tribe that must have made Richard Dreyfuss very happy.  THE MIDDLE was also up a gratifying 0.4, while SUBURGATORY was slightly up and MODERN FAMILY was even.  

FOX:  AMERICAN IDOL 2-hour Wednesday was in the same position as its Tuesday:  dreadfully down from the parallel episode last year (44%, ouch), but only slightly down from last week.  The days of its dominance certainly seem to be over.

CW:  Audiences were not waiting with baited breath for the US vs. Brit version of AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, which had a 0.6 that was down a disastrous 45% from last year's Spring premiere, and even down from its lead-in ONE TREE HILL.  (And for anyone looking for excuses, sorry:  last year's premiere also aired against a 2-hour Idol.)

NBC:  On the plus side, nothing got worse. ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA and SVU remained tied with their all-time lows, while WHITNEY and ROCK CENTER were a wildly exciting 0.1 above theirs'.  Next week, the network begins its Wednesday roundelay, with a new version of the schedule practically every week.  Fun!

CBS:  No good news here, either:  CRIMINAL MINDS tied its season low, while SURVIVOR and CSI were 0.1 above their respective lows.  The latter, though, still had enough to win the 10PM hour.

When NBC chose tonight for the debut of its difficult, highly conceptual AWAKE, the plan was for it to face no competition at 10PM but reruns.  Which is true, except ABC had the interesting idea of re-running its star-studded JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE post-Oscar special in the slot as counterprogramming.  Otherwise, little is new on the schedule:  FOX has another 2-hour Idol, and CBS stuck a new ROB amidst the rest of its otherwise all-repeat night.

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

At FOX, perhaps the most terrifying 7 words in the English language:  AMERICAN IDOL May Not Have Hit Bottom.

FOX:  Despite no special competition on any other network, Idol's 5.1 was down a full ratings point from last week, and down a horrible 35% from last year's parallel episode.  This is still, of course, a very high rating (FOX easily won the night), and Idol, as Mitch Metcalf has shown, skews fairly well with high-income viewers, but make no mistake:  these declines are costing FOX millions of dollars.  Even worse, since advertiser refunds are customarily made in the form of free "make-good" spots on the schedule, and nothing else on FOX rates anywhere near Idol's numbers, the network will have to give away either more Idol inventory or a lot of time in other shows.  And worst of all, it's not clear that these drops are going to stop anytime soon. 

NBC:  So this is NBC, 2011-2012:  nothing but football in the winter, and nothing but The Voice in the spring.  The network is certainly entitled to a little dancing in the street over the fact that they really do have this season's music competition show of choice (at least so far), but the rest of the schedule is an atrocity.  Last night's 1.2 has to be one of the lowest non-holiday, in-season (let alone sweeps) Sun-Thurs nights for any network ever.  The highest rated show of the night was SVU, with a 1.6 that was its lowest rating in a dozen years on the air.  WHITNEY was the night's "success story," as its 1.5 managed to stay 0.1 above its series low.  ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA? hit a new series low 1.3 (Chelsea may be there; no one else is).  And let's not even talk about the unbelievable 0.6 for ROCK CENTER. 

ABC:  But then, not a lot of good news for anyone last night. THE MIDDLE and SUBURGATORY hit new season lows of 2.3.  MODERN FAMIILY and HAPPY ENDINGS were, respectively, 0.2 and 0.1 above season lows.  (Endings, however, did win the prize for Random Pop Culture Reference Of the Week--a prize Community usually owns when it's on the air--when Brad, whose cologne attracts pigeons, was referred to as "Mr. Tuppence A Bag," about as sweet a Mary Poppins gag as you'll ever find.)  The idea of pre-empting Revenge with a special pre-Oscar "Before They Were Stars" installment of 20/20 must have seemed like a good idea at the time; at 1.4, it wasn't.

CBS:  The hits keep coming:  SURVIVOR's 2.8 was the lowest regular episode in that show's 12-year history, and CRIMINAL MINDS tied a season low 3.1.  But then--gasp!--something good:  CSI, with its 2d Elisabeth Shue episode (but probably helped as well by the weak competition on ABC) went up 0.2 from last week, with a 2.8 that almost equaled the NBC and ABC ratings combined.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL's 0.7 was higher than last night's Rock Center.  REMODELED, though, continued marching graveward with a 0.3.

Tonight FOX airs an hour of Idol, followed by THE FINDER.  All the networks feature new episodes, except NBC, which airs its last Grimm rerun at 10PM (Awake starts next week), and CW, which moves to its own drummer and is already in Thursday reruns even though we're still in February sweeps.

Somewhere, Edward R. Murrow weeps.

CBS:  The attempt to resurrect Murrow's 59-year old celebrity interview vehicle PERSON TO PERSON with Charlie Rose and Lara Logan flopped badly with a 1.1 (wait, people didn't want to see the inside of Warren Buffet's house?).  But Survivor will be back next week, so no long-term damage done.  CRIMINAL MINDS was in its recent neighborhood (its lead over Mobbed on FOX will likely look better when final ratings are released and the Idol overrun into Mobbed's hour is removed).  As expected, CSI took a big hit from the last new episode, which was Marg Helgenberger's finale, but still won its hour.  Next week Elisabeth Shue debuts as the show's new female lead, and we'll see if that does anything for the show.

FOX:  AMERICAN IDOL held at a 6.0, which naturally destroyed the competition but was still down almost 30% from last year at this time--and was also about 10% below Monday's number for The Voice.  MOBBED was purportedly up for the night, but again that may well change once the Idol overrun is removed.

ABC:  THE MIDDLE and SUBURGATORY were basically even with their earlier numbers against Idol, while MODERN FAMILY and HAPPY ENDINGS, which had last aired new episodes against a 2-hour Idol, predictably did better against Mobbed.  REVENGE matched its last few originals--we'll see if next week's arc finale gives the show a bump.

NBC:  Even though Idol was stable, its NBC competition of WHITNEY and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA? managed to be down to a pair of 1.5s, which is even with the series low that Up All Night had when it aired on Wednesdays.  ROCK CENTER unsurprisingly was slaughtered in its new 9PM timeslot, with a 1.1 against 3 networks that all averaged a 3.0 or more in the hour.  SVU was in last place at 10PM, although considering the difference in lead-ins, a 2.2 (only 0.5 behind CSI) was almost a moral victory.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL continues to hold nicely with a 0.7, while REMODELED continues to need one of its own with a 0.4.

Virtually all new sweeps episodes on every network tonight.  NBC will air a 1-hour 30 ROCK at 8PM, preempting PARKS & RECREATION, which should have little effect on the ratings, and while the network waits to launch AWAKE after sweeps, it'll re-air the post-Super Bowl edition of THE VOICE at 10PM.

AMERICAN IDOL returned to the schedule, towering over everything... except its own past.

FOX:  Idol came back with a 7.4, which naturally squashed all its competition.  In fact, it beat the ratings of the other 4 broadcast networks combined.  And yet... the number was down 24% from last season's Wednesday premiere.  Last year's 9.8 Wednesday premiere translated into an 8.8 Wednesday season average, so if the numbers work out the same way this time, the show could end up with a 6.6 Wednesday average.  That will certainly keep it as the season's top non-football series, but not quite the monolith it used to be (admittedly, a problem every other network would commit serial murder to have).

NBC:  All the networks choked on FOX's dust last night, but none more than the Peacock.  The 8-9PM sitcoms plunged, with WHITNEY at a new series low 1.6 and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA? not much better with a 1.8.  This was followed by by the usual sad 1.1 for HARRY'S LAW, and a new 1.8  all-time low for the once-mighty SVU, which didn't even have to compete with Idol.

ABC:  All things considered, a decent 2d place for the night, except at 9:30PM where Criminal Minds narrowly beat out HAPPY ENDINGS.  None of the network's shows were down more than 0.4 from last week (MODERN FAMILY and Happy Endings declined only 0.1), and REVENGE even managed to inch up.

CBS:  With Survivor between cycles, the network aired an NCIS repeat at 8PM, which predictably got smashed.  CRIMINAL MINDS hit a season low, but down only 0.2 from its last fresh episode, which aired against much lighter competition.  The only real disappointment was CSI's 2.8, which won its hour but was down 0.1 despite the start of the much-hyped exit of Marg Helgenberger's character.  

CW:  ONE TREE HILL was down to a 0.7, which is still better than Gossip Girl or 90210 have been doing.  The REMODELED repeat that followed did the same 0.3 as the first run had done the night before.

Tonight, more Idol, with fresh competition from all the other networks, including the second episode of ROB on CBS.

AKA the season's final pre-American Idol Wednesday.

NBC:   In the absence of the 600-pound gorilla that's arriving in a week, the new 8-9PM hour did respectably.  WHITNEY's 2.1 was slightly higher than where Up All Night had settled in last fall, and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA built a bit on that to a 2.3, which is more than anything else at 8:30PM has been able to do for the network all season.  On a night when 3 networks were in repeats, that was good enough for 2d place in the hour.  However, as Mitch Metcalf notes, that's partly because NBC spent a lot of money and effort marketing the shows.  And did we mention American Idol arrives next week?  HARRY'S LAW was up fractionally, while SVU couldn't capitalize much on the absence of CSI in its hour, up only 0.1 from its season low.  (And apart from Idol, next week features the start of Marg Helgenberger's departure from CSI, which can be expected to stunt that show's ratings.)

ABC:  An easy night-long win.  Everything was stable except MODERN FAMILY, which was down a not-insubstantial half a ratings point... but if you're Modern Family, you can afford to go down half a point.  Notably, even with presumably more female-skewing competition on CBS than usual, REVENGE still won its hour.

CBS:  The PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS were down 0.2 from last year, still enough for 2d place over its 2 hours.

FOX:  Basically bowed out for the night, with repeat and new episodes of MOBBED that didn't top a 1.3.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL's 0.9 season premere was excellent by CW standards.