Monday, December 8, 2014

Homeland and Newsroom: 2 of the Best Episodes of Television I've Seen All Year! SPOILER ALERTS!



THE ANSWER TO FRIDAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: Sandy Duncan, Mary Martin, Allison Williams, Cathy Rigby and many more women played Peter Pan.

FIRST FIVES: James Gabriele, Mitch Klein, Mike O'Dea, John Amy & Bill McLaughlin
HONORABLE MENTION: Kathy Connelly

THE NUMBERS 

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
Peter Pan Live-NBC 2.4/9.2
Big Bang Theory-CBS 2.1/9.6
Mom-CBS 2.0/8.6
Two and a Half Men-CBS 1.9/8.1
Bones-FOX 1.5/5.7

Thursday's Cable Top 5
Thursday Night Football-NFL Network 3.2/9.1
American Dad-Adult Swim .9/2.0
NBA Basketball-TNT .8/1.8
Big Screen Movie-ABC Family .8/2.2
Pawn Stars-History .8/2.7

Thursday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
Peter Pan Live-NBC 475,000 Tweets
The Vampire Diaries-CW 48,000 Tweets
Beyond Scared Straight-A&E 14,000 Tweets
Daily Show-Comedy Central 7,000 Tweets
Redneck Island-CMT 2,000 Tweets

Friday's Broadcast Top 5
Shark Tank-ABC 1.8/7.1
College Football-FOX 1.8/5.7
20/20-ABC 1.4/6.3
Last Man Standing-ABC 1.2/6.6
The Amazing Race-CBS 1.2/6.1

Friday's Cable Top 5
NA

Friday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
A Very Grammy Christmas-CBS 88,000 Tweets
WWE Friday Night Smackdown-Syfy 30,000 Tweets
Girl Meets World-Disney 29,000 Tweets
America's Next Top Model-CW 26,000 Tweets
Nascar Awards Ceremony-Fox Sports 9,000 Tweets

Late Night Ratings for the Week of 11/24/14-11/28/14
Jimmy Fallon-1.1/3.8
Jimmy Kimmel-.7/3.6
Letterman-.5/2.4
Seth Meyers-.5/1.7
Nightline-.4/2.2
Craig Ferguson-.3/1.3
Carson Daly-.3/.9
Conan-.2/.6
Daily Show-.2/.5 (Repeat)
Colbert Report-.2/.4 (Repeat)

-Peter Pan Live may have won Thursday night for NBC but it didn't even come close to last years Sound of Music numbers. PPL delivered a 2.3. Sound of Music delivered a 4.6. I don't think Peter Pan's as big of a deal as Sound of Music is. Plus, Sound of Music had Carrie Underwood. PPL had Christopher Walken. Big difference. I'm betting that FOX's GREASE does really well IF they can secure great talent.

THE SHOWS 

Homeland
Holy cow, what an intense episode. Carrie and Saul lived through their convoy's blast but that wasn't the end of it. Sniper fire was next. Just about everyone in the convoy died and when Carrie called the cute Pakistani general dude for help, he was with the evil chick who delayed sending it. I hope she gets it soon. A little torture would do that b*tch some good. Back at the Embassy, Hagani and his guys got in through the tunnels that Dennis told them about and took out a ton of Americans. Only Quinn and another guy got out while Lockhart, Martha, her traitor husband and a few others went to the vault for safety. Hagani lined up the American's and started shooting one by one until Lockhart gave up the list of assets and contacts. Lockhart gave up wayyyyy to fast. Martha was the only person in the place with a set of b@lls. She even gave her husband a belt to hang himself with but he OF course couldn't go through with it. The only guy with a set of b@lls was Quinn who went rogue after he shot Hagani and went after him to get the list back. Hagani killed Thera before he split and Max gave Carrie sh*t for it. In the midst of all the stress and madness of the episode, I decided that Max looks like Chandler Bing. The President closed the Embassy, stopped negotiations and wanted everyone to get back to the States immediately. Carrie just had to stay and go after Quinn. Man she'll do anything to avoid changing a diaper won't she? 

Newsroom
Pretty sure last nights episode of Newsroom was one of the best episodes of television I've seen all year. Between Homeland and Newsroom maybe one of the best nights of TV I've seen all year. Wow! Day 53 of Will in prison. He had gotten an annoying cellmate…we thought. This guy was in for domestic battery, had a bunch of issues and gave Will a really hard time. It was only when Will finally got released that we realized his cellmate wasn't real at all. The cellmate was Will's Dad!  A little Fight Club type thing, right? While Will's been in prison, ACN's gone through quite a bit of change that wasn't making anyone but Pruitt happy. With all his changes, the network moved up from 4th to 3rd and was seeing younger demos start to come around, but it was taking its toll on Mack and Charlie and the rest of the staff. Sloan got this doosh, Bree, who had been covering for Neil and running the networks new "stalker app, ACNgage, on her show and just crucified him. Great interview but it got Charlie's blood boiling and Pruitt's blood boiling and Charlie ended up dying of a heart attack. Totally didn't see that one coming AT ALL!  Don was told to interview a Princeton student who set up a website that identified her rapist. That meeting was Aaron Sorkin at his finest. The whole episode was really. Finally, Jim and Maggie kissed. It took a huge Edward Snowden screw up to bring them together, but it happened and I'm thinking they just may have joined the mile high club. Next week is the series finale and Charlie's funeral. I am betting on a few awesome eulogy's to make Charlie proud and to end this show with amazing grace. Kudos to Aaron Sorkin for pulling a Costanza and ending this thing on top. Brilliant season! Brilliant series.


Naked & Afraid with Seth Rogen and James Franco
Obviously Seth and James didn't really spend 21 days Naked and Afraid in the wilderness. I'm thinking maybe this spoof just took a few hours to film, but it was hilarious. I've never seen the real Naked and Afraid, so no idea what to compare it to. Seth and James were definitely naked and did a great job at ACTING afraid. I think they were wearing leaf covered shoes but nothing else at all. They were each allowed to bring one survival item. Seth brought toilet paper which was a good idea since he faked having stomach issues the entire time. James brought sunglasses to help start a fire. NOT! The guys did some naked spooning, naked hiking, naked talking to the camera guys and the fake 21 days was over in 15 minutes. Funny, but nothing you NEED to see. I'd pretty much watch anything Seth Rogen and James Franco do, but that's just me. I've loved them both since Freaks and Geeks. Guess this proves they still are!

Reign
I think there are only 3 of you guys out there that watch Reign, so I won't go crazy with a recap if most of you don't watch. I'm betting it gets cancelled due to lack of viewership but it really shouldn't it. I'm sure it costs a lot to make considering the sets, costumes and large cast, but it's really really good. I wish more people were watching. This week, Mary got raped! OMG! Never saw that coming. The guys were good, they waited for her to be in her nightgown when it would be easy to rape her. No way anyone's getting in her daytime clothes, there are a million layers.  Mary got it together and addressed her people but now, she wants Frances to go and get the guys that did this to her. He's gotta do that  AND save France. He's a busy 20 year old. Who says our kids are overscheduled? The acting and the characters in this show are really strong and interesting and the fact that nobody watches is just a crime. 

Girlfriends Guide to Divorce
Girlfriends Guide to Divorce started out strong but there's a flaw in the show that could be fatal. Lisa Edelstein is great. She plays Abby McCarthy a woman who writes these "Girlfriend Guide" books about her family. Problem is that just as she's launching her latest book, she and her husband are breaking up. We learn that it was her, not him, who sort of cheated. Affairs of the heart count as cheating and that's what happened with her. You could see that she could no longer stand her husband. She could barely look at him and when he tried to touch her she cringed. They told their kids and that's when the story begins. Here's where things start to go downhill. Abby's divorced friends. One is Janeane Garofalo who either plays miserable really well ALL the time or is just really miserable. Hard to tell she has an angry resting face issue.  She's always so unlikeable to me and I hate her in this show too. Then there's the way-out-there very LA Mom friend who's very open sexually and way too beautiful and never seems to have trouble finding a sitter. In the first episode, Abby slept with a much younger, hotter guy who I hope shows up in more episodes. Damn he was hot. I haven't given this show a Season Pass yet, lets see if those annoying friends stick around. Hope not. 

THE OTHER STUFF 

-Grammy Nominees were announced on Friday. Here are the big categories:
Album of the Year: Sam Smith, Beyonce, Beck, Ed Sheerhan & Pharrell Williams
Record of the Year: Fancy, Chandelier, Stay With Me, Shake it Off & All About that Bass
Song of the Year: All About That Bass, Chandelier, Shake it Off, Stay With Me, Take Me to Church
Best New Artist: Bastille, Iggy, Brandy Clark, Haim, Sam Smith
Best Pop Solo Performance: John Legend, Sia, Sam Smith, Taylor Swift, Pharrell Williams
Best Rock Song: Aint it Fun, Blue Moon, Fever, Gimme Something Good & Lazaretto
Best Country Song: American Kids, Automatic, Give Me Back My Hometown, I'm NOt Gonna Miss You, Meanwhile Back at Mama's

-Well…it happened, CBS went dark on Friday night in a bunch of major markets but there was barely any hardship. Dish subscribers only suffered for a total of 12 hours and most of those were the ones with their eyes closed. By 7AM, CBS was back up and running. I'm sure that Les pulled an all-nighter, which probably meant that Julie pulled an all-nighter too. Of course an agreement was reached wayyyyy before kickoff on Sunday because football rules this country in every way these days, doesn't it?

Monday's Trivia Question: Sam Waterston played Charlie on The Newsroom. What was his characters name on Law & Order?


WWTM-Kristy
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Follow me on Twitter at watchingwaytoomuch@tvnme

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