Monday, February 24, 2014

Sorry, I Chose the Downton Finale Over the Closing Ceremonies...






THE ANSWER TO FRIDAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: The Tonight Show and/or Late Night TV was last weeks theme.
FIRST FIVES: Mike O'Dea, Sue MacNamara, James Gabriele, John Romeo & Bob Kaplan
HONORABLE MENTION:Michele Mullings
THE NUMBERS 

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
Winter Olympics-4.9/19.9
Big Bang Theory-CBS 2.6/10.0
American Idol-FOX 2.4/9.1
Mom-CBS 1.8/7.1
Two and a Half Men-1.6/6.5

Thursday's Cable Top 5
NBA Basketball-TNT 1.7/3.8
Pawn Stars-History 1.1/3.4
American Dad-Adult Swim 1.0/2.2
NBA Basketball-TNT .9/2.0
College Basketball-ESPN .8/2.2

Thursday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
Premio Lo Nuestro 2014- Univision 546,400 Tweets
American Idol-FOX 56,300 Tweets
At Midnight-Comedy Central 42,100 Tweets
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon-NBC 24,900 Tweets
The O'Reilly Factor-FOX News 1,600 Tweets

Friday's Broadcast Top 5
Winter Olympics-NBC 3.5/14.5
Shark Tank-ABC 1.7/6.1
20/20-ABC 1.5/6.0
Bones-FOX .9/3.1
Blue Bloods-CBS .7/5.3

Friday's Cable Top 5
NA

Friday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon-NBC 69,500 Tweets
WWE Friday Night Smackdown-Syfy 31,600 Tweets
Shark Tank-ABC 7,800 Tweets
20/20-ABC 3,000 Tweets
Oprah Where Are They Now-OWN 800 Tweets

Early Morning News Ratings for the week of 2/10/14-2/14/14 (Olympic Week)
Today Show 2.1/2.5
GMA 2.0/2.3
CBS This Morning 1.0/1.3

2% of Netflix US Subscribers binge-watched the entire House of Cards season two over the weekend of its release. The first episode had 6-10% of U.S. subscribers watching within 3 days. I was part of the 2% and if you aren't part of any % GET ON IT!  You need to see it so we can talk about it!


LATE NIGHT WEEK 1: Keep in mind, the dust will settle in a month or so, but for now a girl can be proud of her FBFF can't she?
  • For the FULL week, The Tonight Show averaged 8.4 million viewers, making it the most watched week in 20 years (since the week of the Cheers finale in 1993) despite 4 of the 5 shows being pushed to a 12M start time due to Olympics.
  • The 8.4 million viewers for the week is up 112% versus “Tonight’s prior season-to-date average of 4.0 million through Feb. 9.  It's worth mentioning that Jay was delivering one of his strongest seasons in years, up 15% vs. last year. It was also “Tonight’s” biggest audience through the first 20 weeks of the season in five years.
  • Against adults 18-49, Fallon’s premiere week averaged a 2.8 rating, the show’s best delivery in nine years (since the week of Jan. 24 2005, which was the special tribute to Johnny Carson) and matched Tonight’s best weekly rating in nearly 10 years (since the week of May 3, 2004, the week of the “Friends” finale, 3.0).
  • Friday’s 11:30 episode featuring Jimmy's BFF,  Justin Timberlake, grew vs. the prior night’s midnight telecast delivering the show’s strongest results since Monday’s series premiere.  The Feb. 21 show averaged a 2.9 RA18-49 with 8.7 million viewers overall to generate the show’s third consecutive night-to-night gain in adults 18-49.
  • Friday’s 2.9 rating in adults 18-49 was up 12% vs. Thursday’s 2.6, up 21% vs. Wednesday’s 2.4 and up 26% vs. Tuesday’s 2.3.  The total viewership of 8.7 million was up 14% vs.Thursday’s 7.6 million and up 21% vs. Wednesday’s 7.2 million. 
  • Over on ABC, what's the saying? A rising tide lifts all boats right? I think that's it and I'm pretty sure it was Kennedy who said it. Anyway, I'm using it because with Jimmy Fallon now at 11:30, the bar has been raised, but Kimmel accepted the challenge and pulled off an Olympic caliber prank which resulted in a 26% increase in viewership for Wednesday nights show. Even against A18-49 viewership increased by 58%. Boats are rising. ALL ABOARD!  
THE SHOWS 
Downton Abbey Season Finale
Lots of Plots would be the theme of the season finale. 
Plot #1-Between last weeks episode and this weeks episode, 8 months have passed, Lady Edith secretly had a baby girl, gave her to some peeps in Geneva, and couldn't live with the decision so now she's going back to get her. Luckily, she didn't sign any official paperwork and the pig dude and his wife are going to take the baby so she'll be at Downton and closer to Lady Edith. No confirmation on Michael's death though. I'm thinking he'll show up at the completely worst possible time next season.
Plot #2-Everyone except Branson, Barrow and Ivy were up in London celebrating Rose's presentation to the King and Queen. That teacher, Sarah Bunting and Branson had dinner and then he brought her to Downton for a quick tour. She wanted to go upstairs just for a view from the top which would NEVER be allowed if everyone was home. Branson even said he wasn't comfortable with it, but she went up anyway and guess who was there to see it all happen? Barrow OF COURSE. You knew he'd use it the second he could. As soon as he saw his boss, Lord Grantham, he just HAD to tell him. Unfortunately for Barrow Robert really didn't give a sh*t. Wahhh Wahhhh
Plot #3-Gotta give Lady Mary credit. Now that she seems to be officially out of mourning,  she can't make up her mind between Tony or Charles, especially now that she's found out that Charles has dough ( a lot of it apparently) and comes from the right side of the tracks. Gotta give Tony credit, he's the one who told Mary this big news. He wants to win her fair and square and I'm on his side.  Neither one of them are backing down. So the question is will she dump them both next season, pick one or find a completely new dude to drive insane?
Plot #4-Mrs. Crawley and Lord Madden-ewwwww
Plot #5-Mrs. Crawley and Lady Grantham-yeahhhh best pair since Thelma and Louise? Can you think of a better pair than that...it's late, I could've used help there.
Plot#5-Paul Giamatti, aka Harold Levenson (who happened to be this total geek in my high school) showed up as Cora's wealthy, sarcastic, miserable, but somewhat likeable brother. Lady Madeline (and her father) was into Harold. He was cynical, but I have a feeling he's coming back for her at some point
Plot#6-Shirley MacLaine led on Lord Asgarth for the sport of it and then turned him down but offered to find some other American if that's what he's into.
Plot#7-Harold's footman was an annoying embarrassment but fell for Daisy and invited her to NY to cook for his boss. She turned him down but offered up Ivy. 2 birds...1 stone. Great idea Daisy.
Plot #8 -Albert graduated and is working at The Ritz. Daisy's still into him.
Plot #9-Barrow kept threatening Baxter with some secret but it was Mr. Mosely who gave her the strength to tell Thomas to F off. When she thanked him for his strength, Mosely was shocked that he even had any to share. Hilarious. I still want to know the secret, but maybe we never find out.
Plot #10-Mrs. Hughes found a ticket in Mr. Bates overcoat proving that he was in London when that rapist was killed. For the first time ever, she decides NOT to keep it to herself and told Lady Mary who at first was going to keep the secret then waffled but then after Bates helped with Plot #11 she burned the ticket so nobody will ever know the truth...OR WILL THEY?
Plot#11-THE BEST PLOT OF THE NIGHT-That scammer, Mr. Samson was back and stole a letter out of Rose's friends purse. The letter proved that Mrs. Dudley Ward (aka Frieda) was having an affair with The Prince of Wales. Rose felt guilty about it since she invited Mr. Sampson to the party, so she told Lord Grantham who came up with a crazy scheme to set up a card game as a distraction, have Lady Mary, Charles and Rose swap the letter out of his room. But where does one find a forger?  BATES! Of course the zany royals couldn't find the letter, but BATES knew that it would most likely be in the guys overcoat because that's where he put his own incriminating evidence. But where does one find a pickpocket so late at night? BATES! Problem solved, letter forged and swapped and the best part. The Prince of Wales showed up and opened Rose's ball to thank her. Robert and Cora couldn't have been any prouder.
Plot#12-THE SWEETEST PLOT OF THE NIGHT-Cora gave the staff the day off and they all went to the beach in their clothes. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes rolled up their pants and dress, took their socks and stockings off and held hands as they walked into the ocean together. ROLL CREDITS!
Better than the closing ceremonies...

Girls
Relatively speaking, Girls wasn't THAT offensive, annoying or irksome last night. Don't get me wrong, Hannah's still Hannah and when Patti Lupone cancelled her interview at the last second, Hannah hunted her down and got the completely untrue story of her osteoporosis. In their limited time together, Patti warned Hannah that Adam's role on Broadway will be tough on her. Oh...did I mention that Adam got a role on Broadway? Guess I forgot that part. While he was waiting to meet with the producers he met one of his castmates named Desi who apparently was on One Tree Hill, but I have no recollection of him on the show and I don't think I missed an episode ever. Marnie's still only really eating Pizza and FroYo and still seems to weigh nothing. Ray dumped her, even though they were never a couple, because he wants a real relationship. Shosh was sporting an odd hairdo again and Jessa's back on coke and stealing. Of all the Girls episodes this season, this was the least annoying. I didn't even mind Hannah and Adam in the tub together at the end. 
Episodes
Do you think any NY executives have those treadmill desks? Seems like in LA the treadmill desk is THE hottest ticket right now.  It keeps popping up in various shows and I know Jimmy Kimmel attributes a lot of his weight loss to his treadmill desk. Sean and Bev's semi-agent, Ilene Jaffe seems to be able to accomplish and awful lot on hers all while wearing pumps! I'm guessing that she'll be able to convince them to stay in LA and write another show otherwise Episodes won't be Episodes anymore. Okay so Matt was at the Galleria (that's what they call the mall in LA) with his kids and saw Labia,  his stalker. So he immediately panicked and sent his kids, all by themselves to Brookstone while he dealt with her. Not great parenting. I don't know if I'd send my 12 year old somewhere alone in the mall yet.  So crazy that no matter how bad Matt is, we love him don't we? I'm glad they finally got Castor's meds somewhat under control. If I had to watch Carol in another pathetic, awkward, uncomfortable sexual position, it would take everything in me to not want to contact her personally and slap her. Lastly...are we lead to believe that the heads of networks are all crazy slackers? Merc and Castor rarely work. They lunch, have sex and have their underlings to all the heavy lifting.  Maybe Nina Tassler, Kevin Reilly and Paul Lee's have treadmill desks, and I'm sure they eat well, but I'm betting they work pretty hard. 

Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon 
If you are a devoted reader of this blog, then I'm assuming you all watched Friday night's Tonight Show with my FBFF and his BFF, Justin Timberlake. Justin's been sick, but that didn't stop him from performing The History of Rap 5 and one of his singles. Justin and Jimmy should just make an appointment appearance once a quarter, heck I'd watch the two of them talk every day. That was the best part of the show. Jimmy and Justin just talking. The History of Rap was good, don't get me wrong, but I think it's time to retire it. I get that this is what J&J are famous for doing and that it is their "thing" but I didn't think the 5th edition was as good as its predecessors. Still, of course, the show didn't disappoint. It never really does. In case you've missed any of the History of Rap, here are all 5.  My favorite is still #4, but that's because I got to see it up close. 

THE OTHER STUFF 

-Netflix has agreed to pay Comcast for direct access to the their broadband network. The move will hopefully improve the streaming service's recent lagging performance. The terms of the agreement have yet to be revealed but if money was in fact involved it would be the first time a company paid an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to improve connection speed. Network connection deals aren't uncommon but they are usually done without payment. This could set the precedent for similar deals with other ISPs that have speed problems. I can't believe I'm paying Cablevision a compliment, but I've never had an issue with Netflix in my house. Speeds have always been fine.

-All of us are used to shocking eliminations on our fave reality competition shows aren't we? Tables were turned on Brooke Burke-Charvet over the weekend when she got eliminated from Dancing with the Stars. First the producers eliminated the orchestra and now Brooke. From the interviews, sounds like she was blindsided. Of course with any good reality show there has to be a twist right? Brooke's out but apparently Erin Andrews will now get a chance to play the game. Erin's keeping her FOX gig, but she'll also be hangin with Tom Bergeron on Monday nights now.

-First Brooke and then Piers Morgan...both OUT. Piers gets til the end of March. They say these things come in threes...whose next?

-Remember the show Heroes? Remember how it was super hot and then went down in flames? NBC's resurrecting it. Bringing back the original series creator Tim Kring and putting a 13 episode event series together for 2015.  Sometimes hindsight is 20/20. Everyone knows where they went wrong and now...DO-OVER! All we know so far is that the show will be called: Heroes Reborn. More to come I'm sure.

-I never got on the Veronica Mars bandwagon. Not originally and not on Netflix but of course we all know the story about this one. It put Kickstarter on the map right? The fans all forked over enough dough to get a Veronica Mars movie made. The movie comes out in March and will be available On Demand the same day as it's available in the theatres. Don't you wish EVERY movie was available On Demand the same day it's available in theatres? I know theatre owners wouldn't like that,  but I'm betting everyone else would. I love going to the movies more than anyone, but these days it costs 60 bucks for 3 people to go to a movie and have snacks. I'd happily pay 30 to watch it at home and not deal with someone's crying baby, feet kicking my chair, looking for a parking spot, and having to shush my fellow moviegoers for 2 hours. At least if I was home, I could kick my kid out of the room if he was pissing me off.

-The Television Academy's made some changes to the categories for this year. Biggest ones are that the movie and miniseries category and the reality show category will be split into 2 each. Definitely a needed change, I just worry that I'll be up til 2AM on Emmy night. 

 -Nothing to do with TV, but I found these facts interesting enough to share: 
  • NYC subway riders spent 47 years on the Internet in 2013
  • 2.5 million of 2.6 million Wi-Fi connections made in the subway were on mobile devices
  • The most popular kind of smartphone was the iphone
  • 75% of all connections happened on an iphone compared to 17% on the Samsung Galaxy and 3% on an iPod Touch, Ipad and Galaxy Note
  • Subway riders younger than 34 years old acconted for 63% of users 
  • 63% male/37% female
  • Most popular subway station...Times Square
-RIP Maria Von Trapp. The real one, not Julie Andrews, passed away over the weekend at age 99. I hope she was surrounded by raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens and bright copper kettles with warm woolen mittens when she died. 

Monday's Trivia Question: My So Called Life/Dallas Buyers Club-Name the Actor


WWTM-Kristy
Like me on Facebook at Watching Way Too Much
Follow me on Twitter at watchingwaytoomuch@tvnme
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