House of Cards, Downton Abbey, Madam Secretary & Girls

Monday, March 7 2016

Friday's Dirty Dancing Trivia Answers: Fruit: Watermelon, Guy carrying fruit: Billy, Kellerman's grandson: Neil, dance he wanted Johnny to end the season with: The Pachenga & the old couple who stole the wallets: The Schumachers

First Fives: Mike O'Dea, Andrea Jody, Alyssa Leifer, Priscilla Paez & Chuck Chiocco
Honorable Mention: Monica Caraffa

THE NUMBERS

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
Grey's Anatomy-ABC 2.2/7.6
Big Bang Theory-CBS 1.9/10.1
American Idol-FOX 1.9/8.6
Life in Pieces-CBS 1.8/8.4
Mom-CBS 1.7/8.0  

Thursday's Cable Top 5
Republican Debate-FOX News 3.6/16.8
NBA-TNT 1.6/3.6
American Dad-Adult Swim .8/1.7
WWE Smackdown-USA .8/1.6
The OReilly Factor-FOX News .7/1.6 

Thursday's Social Media Top 5
Republican Debate-FOX News 2,311,000 Tweets
American Idol-FOX 112,000 Tweets
Grey's Anatomy-ABC 69,000 Tweets
How to Get Away with Murder-ABC 64,000 Tweets
WWE Smackdown-USA 51,000 Tweets   

THE SHOWS

  Downton Abbey Series Finale

A PERFECT ending to a PERFECT show. Everything wrapped up nice and tidy. Mr. Carson would have had it no other way. Henry knocked up Lady Mary pretty fast and decided to give up racing, but not cars. He and Tom are now going to be used car salesmen and build cars when they figure out how. Shockingly...Lady Mary is just fine with the idea of being married to a greasemonkey. OF COURSE Birdy came to his senses, told his Mommy the truth and married Lady Edith. So we got our wedding. On New Years Eve no less. Cora was kicking ass at the hospital and Granny was actually proud of her. At first, it didn't look great for Mrs. Crawley and Lord Merton but turns out the Anemia he thought he was dying from was the good kind. You know...the eat-some-burgers and your good to go kind. Anna had her baby boy on New Years Eve, in Lady Mary's bed but everyone's doing just fine and Anna will be up and blow drying Lady Mary's hair and the wet spot on the carpet where her water broke with the massive new blow dryer in just a few days. Mr. Carson had a hand tremor and can no longer pour anything which pretty much means the end of his butlering days. He's gonna Netflix and Chill with Mrs. Hughes and guess who's taking over for him? MR. BARROW!!! The student becomes the teacher. A full circle moment.
Rose and Atticus were back from the states for Lady Edith's wedding. They had a baby and left her with someone so they could be there to see Edith get married with their own two eyes. Daisy cut her hair and moved to the farm with Mr. Mason and officially admitted she liked Andy. Mr. Mosley got a permanent job and his own place so now he and Mrs. Baxter have a place to hook up. Danka finished the series and was never able to get Spratt fired. Robert and Cora were basking in the glow marrying off the last of their daughters and Robert not dying. A huge thank you to The Grantham Family for 6 perfect seasons with the exception of the last minute of Season 3. I will miss you all.



House of Cards Season 4
I don't know why I always feel the need to justify a good long binge, but I do. I definitely suffer from Binge Guiltitis. Yes, I did watch all of Season 4 of House of Cards this weekend BUT, I also picked my son up from baseball and took him and his friend to Chipotle, took the dogs to the groomer, spun, went to the eye doctor, worked, went out for dinner Saturday and Sunday, went to Pilates and did my bills. I feel better now. I know most of you haven't seen it all yet, so I won't talk about it or give anything away for awhile, but what I can say is that Season 4 was great. WAY better than Season 3. If Robin Wright doesn't win an Emmy for her performance as Claire Underwood than something is wrong in the world. She hypnotizes me. Every single thing about Claire Underwood is calculated, manipulative and brilliant. Her hair, her clothes, her walk and even her shoes. She's one of the most incredibly complex characters, male or female to come along in years. Nice to see Neve Campbell back on the screen. Joel Kinnaman, the super-hot dude from The Killing is a very nice addition to the cast as well. Ellen Burstyn and Cicely Tyson all had nice roles in Season 4, too. How many of you guys started Season 4? Anyone finish? Lets talk if you did! 
 
Madam Secretary
Just realized while watching Madam Secretary last night that Jay is Luke Grimes from House of Cards. Can't believe I didn't remember that. So while Elizabeth was dealing with refugees off the coast of Libya and Henry was dealing with Islamic terrorists, Stevie was cooking a huge dinner for Jareth, her new British BF and the family.  Of course nobody made it home for the meet and eat because they were fighting terrorism which is a very acceptable excuse. The McCord's really only eat take out anyway, not sure they would have even recognized a home cooked meal. The British BF was sooooo super confident and sooooo super cool, that he showed up the next morning to meet the Secretary and her husband with fresh scones for everyone. Awwww. I know that space is tight at The White House but to shove Henry and 3 other "specialists" in a closet seemed a bit weird to me. It's bad enough when you don't get along with your co-workers but when one of them is a total d*ck and you're literally locked in a closet with him it's really hard to start off on the right foot, especially when the goal is to work together to find and kill terrorists. Not a great first week for the team. One of them was blown up by a suicide bomber. So now there are 3 left. I'm sure it will be tough to find a replacement. Especially if the candidate asks what happened to his or her predecessor. Daisy's resting sleepy face was on high alert last night and we did have one sleeve situation in the kitchen. Elizabeth's back to those tie/scarves again, too. I wonder if the idea is to distract from her neck?

Girls
I'm done. No really, it's official. Last night's episode was my last. I just can't do it anymore. Sunday's are too precious to hate watch anything. I get that we are supposed to be annoyed and uncomfortable by Hannah and her friends, but between Shoshanna dressing up in a nurse outfit and going to a crazy Japanese S&M place and Ray and Elijah taking porno shots of Hannah for Fran, I just can't take it any longer. Everyone says that Lena Dunham has her pulse on a generation. I must be out of touch big time then because I don't know anyone like any of these characters and I'm happy I don't. Deleting the Season Pass and this time...I really mean it.   
 

THE OTHER STUFF

-I read a pretty interesting article about Netflix and traditional TV viewership in Variety over the weekend. Here are the high points. (Or low points)

• 2015 Netflix accounted for about 1/2 of the 3% decline in traditional TV viewing. 
• Netflix's US subscribers streamed 29 billion hours of video in 2015 
• This represents 6% of the total US Live +7 TV viewing reported by Nielsen (up from 4.4% in 2014) 
• Not all networks suffered, some actually saw an increase in viewing hours.  
• Time Warner, Scripps, AMC and Discovery saw increases
• A&E, Viacom, NBCU and Disney saw decreases. 
• It's worse when you look at broadcast networks in Netflix households. CBS was down 42% vs non subscriber homes, with FOX down 35%, ABC down 32% and NBC down 27%.  
• Considering that I watched 13 hours of Netflix this weekend alone, and ZERO hours on the broadcast nets, I'd say these numbers make sense to me.  
• Binges account for half of the lost TV viewing.

-I promised that when I had a chance to check on exactly what the new Emmy category "Short Form Series" was, I would. Well...I had a second and here is the definition: "A series with a minimum of 6 episodes running an average of 15 minutes or LESS per episode exhibited over the air and/or via cable, satellite or Internet." I thought maybe Comedians in Cars would be an example but those are usually longer than 15 minutes. So I'm thinking that a lot of the YouTube Channel content may qualify. Anyone currently watch a series that meets these qualifications? I don't think I do. 

-Freeform cancelled "Kevin From Work" after just 1 Season. 

-Lady Gaga will be back for Season 6 of American Horror Story. I guess since her last album sort of bombed, she might as well act until she's inspired with some better music. If I were her, I'd get cracking on those wedding plans. Taylor Kinney's HOT. I'd lock that dude down quick and get that ring on his finger asap. 

-Add GMA's Ginger Zee to the Dancing with the Stars contestant list. Didn't she just have a baby? Seems like a lot to take on right now. GMA, DWTS and MOMMY duty? I think she could be pushing it a bit.

-I meant to post this on Friday and totally forgot. Jimmy Fallon had Jesse Fredricks, the guy that was responsible for all the TGIF theme songs, write one for The Tonight Show. Honestly, I love it! What do you guys think? 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il0qYjw_euo

Monday's Trivia Question: What was Neve Campbell's character's name in Party of Five?


WWTM-Kristy
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