Movie Box Review

Here, in the end, is all you needed to know about TERRA NOVA:  in its entire 2-hour season--and very possibly series--finale, dinosaurs were sighted for a grand total of about 2 minutes.

Remember the original promos for Terra Nova, the ones that played on FOX for months while the show kept getting postponed?  The ones that promised a Jurassic Park experience in your living room, week-in and week-out, with blockbuster-movie level computer-generated dinos?  Well, after the big-budget series pilot, that show didn't exist.  What Terra Nova turned out to be instead was a story about good guys living in a colony walled off from some very disorganized bad guys (revolutionaries?  corporate dupes?) and prehistoric creatures that were more often talked about than seen.  (And when they showed up, they turned out to be the CG equivalent of cardboard cutouts.)

The Shannons, aka World's Most Uninteresting Family, were the leads, bested only by Skye, The World's Most Harmless Spy and, later in the season, by Lucas Taylor, The World's Most Insipid Villain.  Lucas was the son of Commander Taylor, who as played by Stephen Lang was the only one in all of prehistory to be a little bit interesting.  Lucas had been built up in early episodes as some kind of freaky insane genius who knew how to solve the mysteries of time travel and passage between universes, but he turned out to be the anti-Carrie Mathison, a pouting post-adolescent madman who became duller and more banal the more we saw of him, obsessed with daddy issues and what happened in Somalia.  Having him as Terra Nova's chief antagonist was like making a huge-budgeted superhero epic where the villain was Biff from Back to the Future.

There were so many awful moments in the finale that it's hard to choose just one:  daddy Commander not realizing his crazy son wanted a hug for the very first time just so he could stab dad?  The fuss about Jim Shannon vanishing through an unknown portal to the past, possibly lost in unexplored parts of the planet... only to have him turn up behind the nearest tree?  The idiot bad guy who thought he'd been injected with deadly microorganisms because someone told him so?  The big "mystery" for a purported next season of a 18th-century ship turning up in the desert (seen Close Encounters much?)?  Maybe it was the way every one of the villains believed Jim's ridiculous fake deafness and limp even as Jim was running all over the compound and having conversations with everyone in earshot.

Whether Terra Nova comes back next season will ultimately be determined by factors of no interest to mere viewers:  overseas sales, the network's slate of 8PM development, the possibility of reduced network license fees.  What the finale proved conclusively, however, is that the show deserves to be left in the distant past.

Forget about prestige drama and comedy:  it turned out all NBC needed was some dining on bugs.

NBC:  FEAR FACTOR returned to the airwaves with a tremendous 3.4 average over 2 hours.  This is great news for a network that sorely needs some, but it's worth noting that in this same holiday period last year, against mostly specials and repeats, The Sing-Off did a 3.6, a level that prompted the network to bring the show back as a fall series... and we all know how that worked out.  So Fear Factor may be more of a seasonal curiosity than an enduring hit.  Still:  success!  It turns out the cow blood audience doesn't overlap that much with the newsmagazine crowd (who knew?), so the glad tidings didn't extend to ROCK CENTER. 

FOX:  The positive spin on TERRA NOVA matching or setting a season low (depending on football adjustment) is that it was facing much more powerful competition on NBC than it's had all season.  Well, maybe--but it was also yet another lousy (and almost dinosaur-free) episode, as the series prepares next week for its season, and possibly series, finale.  Nobody showed up for the HOUSE repeat at 9PM.

CBS:  The 8PM experiment of putting 2 BROKE GIRLS in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER's slot wasn't a huge success, scoring a few tenths below Mother's usual number.  On the other hand, most networks would drool for a slot-winning 4.1 rating at 8PM, so the test was hardly an abject failure.  The combination of a Broke Girls repeat at 9:30 and the strong male-oriented competition on NBC hurt 2 1/2 MEN and MIKE & MOLLY; the former set a new season low, and the latter was just a bit above its low.  HAWAII 5-0 was also near the bottom of its range, despite facing a repeat on ABC.

ABC:  Barely present, with ratings for yet another Charlie Brown Xmas special, the flop game-show YOU DESERVE IT and a CASTLE repeat all below a 1.5.

CW:  Repeats, repeats.  

Tonight CBS and FOX air new regular-series episodes, while NBC tries a Prince William & Kate special at 8PM, and ABC, oddly, has a new LAST MAN STANDING leading into a night otherwise in repeats.

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.

The networks were mostly happy to see the Halloween in their rearview mirrors.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA got the bounce that it desperately needed:  2.6 is far from a thrilling rating and still keeps the expensive show on the bubble, but at least it's in the hunt.  HOUSE was also up, although its 2.7 won't encourage FOX to make the expensive deals it would take to bring the show back.

CBS:  All the 8-10PM shows over a 4, and a solid win for HAWAII 5-0 at 10PM.  Life is good.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS did quite well, making the drop for CASTLE (which will probably go down even further in final numbers due to the usual Dancing overrun) even more perplexing.

NBC:  The network isn't really part of the Monday conversation; it's just waiting for February, when post-Super Bowl the night will have its 2 big hopes, the return of The Voice and Smash.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL appears to be terminally down, and that's not helping HART OF DIXIE.  The network has only one more week of original episodes before it takes its customary 2-month break until January, and that kind of absence could make things even worse.

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.

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.

8PM:  TERRA NOVA can't be ignored, since it's the 600-ton tyrannosaur of the new Fall shows.  The guess here, though, is that after the pilot, the special effects will become a bit sketchier, and it'll start looking more like a B-movie than a blockbuster--that's when it'll be time to go back to reliable old favorites.  For some that will mean DANCING WITH THE STARS or GOSSIP GIRL, but on this TV, it's HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, now paired with TWO BROKE GIRLS.  That one looks somewhat overly brassy, but has the tremendously talented Kat Dennings in the lead.

9PM:  Here's hoping The CW's HART OF DIXIE has some spark to it, because it's the only new life in a timeslot of returnees (admittedly, fans of  2 1/2 MEN and/or Ashton Kutcher may be more excited by this timeslot).  

10PM:  THE PLAYBOY CLUB has only looked moderately promising from what we've seen so far--handsome but predictably soapy.  Still, it's certainly a change of pace from the procedurals CASTLE and HAWAII 5-0 that are slated against it, and worth some encouragement on that count alone.

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