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.

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.

If you hear bells pealing and catch sight of Human Beings dancing (well, not so much dancing as meta-dancing that references obscure pop culture artifacts from 20 years ago), it's because NBC has finally freed COMMUNITY, its low-rated, selectively-beloved, utterly bizarre captive sitcom.  

As of March 15, Community will be back in its 8PM Thursday timeslot, with 30 ROCK moving to 8:30.  The bad news is that this will keep PARKS & RECREATION off the schedule until April 19, when that show will come back at 9:30PM (when UP ALL NIGHT will have finished its season order). 

The network also announced a set of changes to its disastrous Wednesday night schedule that are as twisty as a John LeCarre novel, so pay attention:

For the next 2 weeks (Feb 22 and 29), Wednesdays will continue to be:

8PM:  WHITNEY

8:30PM:  ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?

9PM:  ROCK CENTER

10PM:  SVU

After that, the changes start.  March 7-14:

8PM:  Whitney

8:30PM:  Are You There, Chelsea?

9PM:  ???

10PM:  Rock Center

March 21-28:

8PM:  Whitney

8:30PM:  Are You There, Chelsea? (both their season--please God, series--finales air March 28)

9PM:  BENT (Amanda Peet sitcom being burned off with 3 consecutive weeks of back-to-back episodes)

10PM:  Rock Center

April 4:

8PM:  BETTY WHITE'S OFF THEIR ROCKERS (reality comedy)

8:30PM:  BEST FRIENDS FOREVER (semi-improv sitcom)

9PM:  Bent

10PM:  Rock Center

April 11-May 23:

8PM:  Betty White's Off Their Rockers

8:30PM:  Best Friends Forever

9PM:  Rock Center

10PM:  SVU

Got that?  Planning to watch any of it?  Did I mention that Community is coming back?

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.

Question for the class:  are the travails of AMERICAN IDOL and THE X FACTOR good or bad for NBC's THE VOICE?  Discuss among yourselves for the next 4 days.

FOX:  It's becoming a familiar song:  Idol easily wins the night for FOX, dominates its hour... but at a substantially lower level than it has in the past.  A 5.9 is a terrific rating, but it doesn't compare to the 9.0 Idol scored on last year's parallel night, and that kind of shortfall translates into sharply reduced advertising revenues for the network and producers.  Boosted by Idol, MOBBED hit a strong 2.9, albeit only 0.2 higher than the MODERN FAMILY repeat on ABC (and the Mobbed number may come down if there was an Idol overrun at 9PM).

NBC:  With repeats on ABC and a soft special on CBS, WHITNEY and  ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA were both up 0.3 from last week, but that still put them each at a 1.7.  The 9PM SVU repeat was low, but in the 10PM battle of the repeats, the show narrowly edged out CSI.

CBS:  The year's installment of SUPER BOWL'S GREATEST COMMERCIALS didn't do much with a 2.1, but that was enough for 2d place in the hour.  After that, 2 hours of repeats.

ABC:  An all-repeat night, with only Modern Family hitting any kind of number.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL continues to do well by CW standards with a 0.7, and REMODELED, with a 0.3, continues to do badly by anyone's standards.

Tonight:  Sweeps!  (Oprah voice) New episodes for you, new episodes for you, new episodes for everyone!  GREY'S ANATOMY will have an old-fashioned sweeps stunt episode with a Sliding Doors-ish story about alternative lives the characters could have led (if it were December, we'd call it It's A Wonderful Life-ish).  

Welcome back to Network Scorecard, where we consider the perplexing case of AMERICAN IDOL.

FOX:  It's now clear that the biggest story of the 2011-12 television season is the slump in established reality-competition franchises.  Idol joins Dancing With the Stars and The Biggest Loser with a nearly 30% decline from last year's Wednesday average.  Of course, given the heights of that average, Idol's 6.4 rating last night would still make it the highest non-football series of the season, and the show will no doubt thrive for many seasons to come.  But the moment of its unquestioned dominance, and that of its genre, may have passed.  (Most nervous network today:  NBC, which has the all-important The Voice waiting in its wings.)   The Idol platform was enough to launch TOUCH with a very impressive 3.9, although it should be noted that the only network airing original competition against it was CBS (and even with the enormous Idol lead-in, Touch only beat Criminal Minds by 0.3), and that Touch won't air again until March 19, when in its regular Monday slot it won't have that huge lead-in.

NBC:  Even with Idol's decline from last week and repeats airing on ABC and CBS, both WHITNEY and ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA plummeted still further to twin series low 1.4 ratings.  The network doesn't have much to replace them with, so those may be NBC's numbers there for quite a while.  (If either series is somehow renewed for next year, it will mean the comedy development at NBC is horrific.)  Back-to-back SVU reruns drew little interest.

CBS:  While the network waits for the new cycle of Survivor to get started, it ran a repeat CRIMINAL MINDS at 8PM, and then, without a 2-hour Idol on the night, the new Minds at 9PM was up 0.4 from last week.  That led in to a season-high 3.3 farewell to Marg Helgenberger on CSI, which will soon debut Elisabeth Shue as her replacement.

ABC:  A night of repeats, with MODERN FAMILY logically enough on top, and the serialized REVENGE equally logically bringing up the rear.

CW:  ONE TREE HILL held very nicely (by CW standards) with a 0.7, and REMODELED continued not to interest anyone with a 0.3.

Tonight is a mixed bag of repeats and originals.  ABC's only new show will be WIPEOUT, and CBS similarly airs new programming 8-9PM only.  NBC has made the odd decision of putting a fresh 30 ROCK at 9PM as lead-in to a repeat UP ALL NIGHT, which then leads to an original (albeit moribund) THE FIRM.  FOX is all new, and CW is already disrupting the just-back-from-hiatus VAMPIRE DIARIES and SECRET CIRCLE with the terrible theatrical movie THE COVENANT. 

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.

NBC's WHITNEY hasn't really had much of a midseason break, but tonight marked its move from a cushy home on Thursday night, where it aired behind the network's only hit, The Office, to the much more challenging job of opening Wednesday nights and clearing the way for new sitcom Are You There, Chelsea?  So it seems like a good time to revisit the series and see how it's been faring.

WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  Whitney (Whitney Cummings) and Alex (Chris D'Elia) have been together for 3 years as a couple and live together, but they're not planning to get married anytime soon.  They hang out with their various friends:  fiances Lily and Neal (Zoe Lister-Jones and Maulik Pancholy), divorcee Roxanne (Rhea Seehorn) and single cop Mark (Dan O'Brien).

WHERE WE ARE:  Whitney walks in on Alex masturbating; meanwhile, Lily, who's moving in with Neal, worries that since they're sharing the same apartment, he'll hear her going to the bathroom.

Whitney is like the set-up to a joke without a punchline:  6 superficial, uninteresting people walk into a room, and... that's it.  The show isn't as aggressively unpleasant as it was when the series started, and the hand on the laugh-track button (live studio audiences get "sweetened," folks) has lightened up.  But there's not much more than that to be said for it.  Unlike 2 Broke Girls, which was also created by Cummings (she had to bow out of day-to-day production when NBC picked up this show too), let alone a really good sitcom like Happy Endings, Whitney hasn't found a core of affection between the protagonists to focus on--Whitney and Alex can swap memories of the times they've spent together all they want, but the characters still feel like actors who just met at a cold reading.  (It doesn't help that Cummings remains a stiff, uneasy actress who runs for bam-bam punchlines like cover from machine-gun fire.)  There continues to be little romantic chemistry between Cummings and D'Elia, and that's something the show can't overcome--every episode of the series seems to have a scene where Whitney or Alex has to prove to the other how well they know each other, as though the producers are trying to convince themselves there's a real relationship here.

As for Whitney's substance, this week's episode sums it up pretty well.  Here we are, incredibly almost 20 years since Seinfeld aired its classic, ingeniously hilarious episode "The Contest" in November 1992, and Whitney's glimpse of Alex jerking off is the occasion for a whole episode's worth of banal, sniggery jokes and mild scandal.  There's nothing imaginative, surprising or, you know... funny, about the episode's storyline--it's presented as though the very idea of masturbation is so inherently mind-blowing that 6 people in their late 20s will instantly become the audience for Porky's II:  The Revenge at the thought of it.  And the same goes for the B plot, which is right out of a Joan Rivers nightclub bit from the 1970s or 80s. 

Whitney doesn't work on any level, and after half a season, it seems unlikely to start.  The attempt to make a retro sit-com work with modern sensibilities founders on its lack of wit, sketchy characters and no point of view.  It's a hollow misfire.

Potentially good news for Cougar Town fans.

ABC:  Cougar Town needs a timeslot, and Tuesday 8:30PM should be opening up any minute now, as 20% of the people who watched WORK IT the first time ran away screaming this week, and the show plunged to a 1.6 rating.  However, that real estate may not be as valuable as it should be, because lead-in LAST MAN STANDING hit a series low 2.2 last night.  All of this, mind you, is while FOX's Glee is still in reruns--when it returns with new episodes next week, the hour will only get more difficult.  CELEBRITY WIFE SWAP continued its low run, and BODY OF PROOF was up only 0.1 from last week's season low.

CBS:  An easy win in every hour, although UNFORGETTABLE tied a season low 2.2.  (As Mitch Metcalf notes, however, 10PM ratings last night are subject to adjustment due to coverage of the New Hampshire Republican primary.)

NBC:  BIGGEST LOSER was down a bit from last week, and PARENTHOOD was up only 0.1 from last week's season low.  However, those numbers were good enough for 2d place across the board, which in NBC terms is practically a win.

FOX:  Reruns, with a 1.3 for NEW GIRL looking best.

CW:  Where are they finding these movies?  Last night the network regaled America with 2 hours of TABLE FOR THREE, a film that seems to have been chosen because it starred One Tree Hill's Sophia Bush and Once Upon A Time's Jennifer Morrison (not to mention sometime Chuck villain Brandon Routh), and which previously had been seen only by their agents and close family.  

Tonight's big event is NBC's premiere of its new 8-9PM comedy hour, with WHITNEY shifted from Thursday and the new ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?.  At 9PM, CBS airs the PEOPLES CHOICE AWARDS, which slumped badly last year from its 2010 number to a 2.7 rating.

Whatever America is doing early in this holiday season, it's not watching network television.

NBC:  The network attempted to help GRIMM in its return after a 3-week hiatus by giving it a showcase Thursday night run, but its 1.6 rating didn't suggest bubbling fan interest (and may prefigure an ugly score in its timeslot return tonight)--it scored better than PRIME SUSPECT, but that's the definition of "not saying much."  Earlier in the evening, a parade of season lows:  PARKS & RECREATION, THE OFFICE and WHITNEY all tied their lows, while the "winner" was COMMUNITY, a whopping 0.1 above its low for its last pre (permanent?) vanishing episode.

CBS:  BIG BANG THEORY was just above its season low, while RULES OF ENGAGEMENT narrowly set a new one.  Initial numbers have strong results for PERSON OF INTEREST and THE MENTALIST, but CBS in Pittsburgh aired the Steelers vs Browns game, so those numbers are due to come down.

FOX:  The FOX affiliate in Cleveland had the other end of the NFL game, so these numbers are probably high as well.  That won't be good news for FOX, since even with the NFL boost, right now X FACTOR is at a season low and BONES is only 0.1 above its own low.

ABC:  WIPEOUT's season premiere at 1.9 was 20% below last season's average.  After that, AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS and  THE GREAT BIG AMERICAN AUCTION specials were nothing of the sort, with lousy 1.9 and 1.4 numbers respectively.  

CW:  Gone fishin till January.

Tonight, as noted above, the question is how GRIMM will fare in its return to timeslot, against atypical competition:  CBS and FOX are airing holiday specials and reruns.

The final Thursday of November sweeps wasn't impressive for anyone.

ABC:  The network had to be disappointed with the 2.5 earned by its 2-hour, much-promoted "intervention" episode of PRIVATE PRACTICE, which was down not only from Grey's Anatomy numbers but even from Practice's 2.8 last week.  (It was, however, a strong episode, especially the first hour written by Shonda Rhimes.)  The Katie Couric/Regis Philbin interview special at 8PM did better than recent episodes of the dead CHARLIE'S ANGELS, but not by much.

FOX:  X FACTOR continued its slide, with last night's 3 its lowest Thursday number by a factor of 10%.  That was, however, still good enough for an easy 2d place finish in its hour.  The news was better for BONES, which capitalized on the absence of Grey's to win at 9PM.  

NBC:  Well, on the plus side COMMUNITY and PARKS AND REC were both up slightly from last week.  But THE OFFICE, despite reduced competition in its hour, tied its season low, and WHITNEY, preparing for its move to Wednesday--where it will have to be a self-starter--hit a new all-time low and went below a 2 for the first time.  The cancelled PRIME SUSPECT played out the string, tying its series low.

CBS:  Even though all its shows except RULES OF ENGAGEMENT were down from last week (and PERSON OF INTEREST and THE MENTALIST both tied their season lows), the network was able to win the night thanks to the absence of Grey's.  

CW:  As the network's Thursday is on hiatus until January, it filled in for the night with an obscure aquatic action movie that happened to star VAMPIRE DIARIES' Paul Wesley.  Even with the temporary and artificial boost of NY and Denver preemptions for the brutal (if you're a Jets fan) football game, the movie did no better than the CW norm, and that will be reduced later today as national numbers come in.

Tonight the Grimm watch will continue for NBC.

NBC has unaccountably decided not to air a midseason schedule consisting of a test pattern and the words "For the love of God, bring back football..." scrolling at the bottom of the screen.  On the contrary, today they announced several notable premieres and moves:

Monday:  As expected, THE VOICE will return to run 8-10PM, followed by the new musical drama SMASH.

Tuesday:  BIGGEST LOSER continues 8-10PM, but starting Feb 28, it will be followed by the new reality show FASHION STAR, with PARENTHOOD, which as a serialized series repeats horribly, taking a break.  However, no word as yet on when or where on the schedule Parenthood will reappear.

Wednesday:  In a movie that makes sense, UP ALL NIGHT will be moving to Thursday with the other single-camera comedies, and the network will launch a multi-camera hour they hope will appeal to young women, with WHITNEY followed by the new ARE YOU THERE, VODKA?  IT'S ME, CHELSEA.  Then the newsmagazine ROCK CENTER, displaced by Smash on Mondays, takes the 9PM slot, followed by SVU.

Thursday:  30 ROCK returns to the schedule at 8PM, followed by PARKS & RECREATION, THE OFFICE and now UP ALL NIGHT.  No word on where this leaves COMMUNITY.  At 10PM, PRIME SUSPECT (not officially cancelled, but clearly on life support) is replaced by the new series version of THE FIRM.

Friday:  Once CHUCK is properly buried, the reality show WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE will be the lead-in to GRIMM, followed by DATELINE.

Saturday:  Reruns, reruns, reruns.

Sunday:  The unfillable hole where football used to be will be covered over with DATELINE, HARRY'S LAW and CELEBRITY APPRENTICE.  It's fair to say there will be a ratings decline on this night.

So where does all this leave the Peacock?  Clearly Monday is set up as the big night of the week.  Tuesdays will likely stay more or less as is in the ratings, and although the Whitney/Chelsea hour is logical, it's not likely to be high-rated.  Thursday should get an uptick with 30 Rock and Up All Night in the place of Community and Whitney, and The Firm very much a question mark.  On Fridays, 8PM will improve on Chuck because, well, anything would improve on Chuck.  And Sundays will see a huge, inevitable decline from the halcyon days of football.

For one network, a night that moved in the wrong direction.

FOX:  Does FOX have to start worrying about X FACTOR?  The show seemed to make its way through the wave of baseball-related preemptions and reschedulings very smoothly, but this week has been troubling.  Both Wednesday and last night, the show has hit season lows for those respective nights, and while the numbers are still perfectly fine (last night's 3.3 was enough for a strong 2d place in its hour), this is the part of the season when competition shows are supposed to start building, not falling apart.  BONES was also down almost 20% from last week, although a drop after the season premiere isn't unusual.  

ABC:  If the network hadn't used the 8PM hour to burn off what may have been the last completed episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS, ABC might have won the night.  The "fall finale" episode of GREY'S ANATOMY was up to a very solid 4, the highest number it's seem since the season premiere, and PRIVATE PRACTICE is peaking at the right time, with its season-highest rating as lead-up to next week's  2-hour special.

CBS:  Even with mostly reruns, CBS was in the hunt to win the night.  BIG BANG THEORY and RULES OF ENGAGEMENT won their hour handily, and the MENTALIST rerun easily beat NBC's new programming at 10PM.

NBC:  The good news was that THE OFFICE stayed on the safe side of a 3 rating, and WHITNEY, while far from a hit, retained a steady 70% of that number.  The 8PM hour was a disaster, though, with COMMUNITY and PARKS & RECREATION both tying their season lows.  (And when it comes to those shows, that does mean "low.")  PRIME SUSPECT, like a crippled racehorse no one will have the mercy to shoot, continued to howl in pain at a 1.2.

CW  The "fall finale" gambit worked less well for VAMPIRE DIARIES and SECRET CIRCLE, which were both down a bit from last week.

Tonight the Friday watch will be on GRIMM, which needs to stop dropping so NBC can reasonably claim a fall hit (by Friday standards), and A GIFTED MAN, fighting to stay off the autopsy table.

On what used to be network TV's marquee night, only one series had a rating over a 4...

NBC:  ...and it certainly wasn't on NBC.  THE OFFICE is now the only non-football show on NBC to exceed even a 2.5 rating.  So far, Office is holding up pretty well post-Carell (down about 20% from last year's season average), although its number isn't all that impressive compared to comedy hits on all the other networks.  Still, that's by far the network's good news.  WHITNEY's plunge means that not a single new NBC fall series is any kind of success.  (Under the "you can't cancel everything" rule, that doesn't mean all these failures will be thrown off the schedule.  In fact, it's very possible several of them may get back orders for spring, not because NBC is suddenly talent-friendly--ah, the spin!--but out of sheer desperation, since apart from Smash, the network's midseason shows are midseason for a reason.)  NBC may be a couple of weeks away from a very difficult decision:  if they can't save both Whitney and Up All Night, which one gets the life-raft of the Office lead-in?  Meanwhile, at 10PM PRIME SUSPECT is on the critical list with a dire 1.5 rating.  From 8-9PM, COMMUNITY and PARKS & RECREATION provide some stability, albeit of the low-rated kind.

CBS:  THE BIG BANG THEORY is the hit of the night, with a terrific (and stable) 4.8.  But after that, things are a lot bumpier.  HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN didn't open (meaning that CBS Marketing was only able to get 2 Broke Girls any kind of debut sampling this fall, and that was because of the 2 1/2 Men lead-in) and is probably headed downhill from there.  It's not just that PERSON OF INTEREST is running 20% below CSI's rating in the same timeslot last year-- it's about 13% below the number CSI is doing now in its weaker Wednesday 10PM slot.  And THE MENTALIST is 20% below last season's average, despite NBC being a non-factor in the timeslot.

ABC:  It's just a matter of time till the misbegotten CHARLIE'S ANGELS heads to the trash-heap.  GREY'S ANATOMY, unable to capitalize on NBC's and CBS's problems, is running 20% below its average last year, but at least in its season debut, PRIVATE PRACTICE hit last year's average. 

FOX:  Once again, when all the smoke had cleared, X FACTOR may have declined a bit from last week, but it gave FOX an easy win for the night.  Next week's experiment with a repeat New Girl at 9:30PM is sure to have a strong lead-in, and the results should be interesting.

CW:  VAMPIRE DIARIES continues to be by far the network's strongest show, and even ticked up a bit this week, while SECRET CIRCLE seems to have settled in to a 0.9 rating, which ain't much, but is above-average by CW standards.

Tonight, CBS will hope that viewers watching A GIFTED MAN, unlike the show's protagonist, won't be seeing dead people.  Look for our Pilot + 1 Review later.