Showing posts with label Downton Abbey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Downton Abbey. Show all posts

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

Monday, February 17, 2014

House of Cards all Weekend Long...sort of





THE ANSWER TO FRIDAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: The theme for last week was shows that have LOVE in the title to celebrate Valentines Day! 
FIRST FIVES: Neil Moffatt, Dani Jackel, Alex Nagler, Jim Carter & Justin Jones 
HONORABLE MENTION: Karen Feldman 

THE NUMBERS 
Wednesday's Cable Top 5
Big Bang Theory-TBS 1.3/3.5
American Dad-Adult Swim .9/1.9
Workaholics-Comedy Central .8/1.2
College Basketball-ESPN .8/2.2
Duck Dynasty-A&E .8/2.1

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
Winter Olympics-NBC 5.9/22.8
American Idol-FOX 2.9/9.8
Big Bang Theory-CBS 2.8/11.7
The Millers-CBS 1.8/7.5
Two and a Half Men-CBS 1.3/5.4

Thursday's Cable Top 5
Pawn Stars-History 1.3/4.2
Big Bang Theory-TBS 1.2/2.4
Appalachian Outlaws-History 1.0/2.7
American Dad-Adult Swim .8/1.8
Law & Order SVU-USA .8/2.4

Thursday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
American Idol-FOX 39,600 Tweets
Mob Wives-VH1 15,500 Tweets
Couples Therapy-VH1 10,700 Tweets
Jimmy Kimmel Live-ABC 4,600 Tweets
Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory-3,800 Tweets

Friday's Broadcast Top 5
Winter Olympics-NBC 4.5/19.0
Shark Tank-ABC 1.2/4.3
20/20-ABC 1.1/4.6
Be My Valentine Charlie Brown-ABC 1.0/3.9
Hawaii Five-0-CBS .9/5.7

Friday's Cable Top 5
NA

Friday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
Ghost Adventures-Travel Channel 29,000 Tweets
Sam & Cat-Nick 5,500 Tweets
Raising Whitley-OWN 2,600 Tweets
Black Sails-Starz 2,100 Tweets
Cops-Spike 1,300 Tweetts

THE SHOWS 
GIRLS 
Hannah wore an ill fitting green bikini for all almost all of last nights episode of Girls which was just SO unecessary and super distracting. The girls all spent the weekend at Marni's Mom's friends place on the North Fork of Long Island. All Marni wanted was a weekend with her friends. Of course she was delusional in thinking this was possible given who her friends are, but gotta give her credit for trying. Elijah and his friends bumped in to Hannah while the Girls were all in town food shopping. COME ON LENA...nobody would go into town in a bikini without a cover up or a sarong or something on. Most stores wouldn't even let you in. Not even someone who could get away with it would be so ballsy, now you're just doing it to piss people off, or push the envelope as much as possible. If that wasn't bad enough the selfishness was just so unbearable to witness. As much as I'm not a fan of Shoshannah's, I was glad when she finally just called them all out and let them have it. Of course everyone was wasted, but the words were right on the money. Judd Apatow helped write this weeks episode. Judd is married to Leslie Mann, a woman who is stunningly beautiful and can absolutely get away with wearing a bikini into Greenport  without a coverup if she wanted to, but I don't think she'd even dare try it. What were you thinking Judd? I mean REALLY? What's the point, what's the message? OMG I hate this show so much I can't stop watching it. When is the finale? I need it to be soon.  

DOWNTON ABBEY 
It just goes to show you that even without cell phones and texting and the internet, gossip travels fast and secrets can't be kept. Alfred's note to Ivy, Rose's tryst with Jack, Mr. Greene the rapist, Edith's pregnancy, cards that come with flowers, all secrets that were kept for all of 10 seconds. The only person who can't seem to get in on the gossip is Mrs. Baxter, but she's really quite poor at mastering the skill isn't she? Mr. Mosley seems to be into Baxter for some reason. I think he might even have a chance with her too. His self esteem problems seemed to disappear for a second when he hit the bell in front of his new "girl" to try and impress her at the church bazaar that was nowhere near a church.  What's impressive to me was the two very attractive men fighting for Lady Mary. Lady Mary's been fully dressed, in fact over dressed and relatively non-shocking, but unlike Hannah Horvath from Girls, she doesn't need to be. She seems to attract men fully clothed. I'm partial to Tony Gillingham, but I could see Mr. Blake winning Mary's affections as well. She keeps saying she's not interested but sooner or later she will come around. Question is will she choose either of those two or someone else completely. I don't like Tom's new woman, Sarah Bunting the school teacher, she's pretty judgemental and I sense she's trouble. So are we 100% certain that Mr. Bates killed Mr. Greene?  Pretty convenient situation really. Anna and Mary went to London, everyone else was in a frenzy setting up the bazaar, Bates needed a day off to kill his wife's rapist and apparently that's what he did and made it like an accident. He sure seemed like he was in a good mood afterwards though.  Of course Anna doesn't believe him, neither does Lady Mary, but since the guy was a rapist, they may all seem to turn a blind eye. So sweet to see Robert's face light up when he came home to Cora. He really loves her doesn't he? Did you notice the "Whack a Rat" game at the bazaar and the GIANT sandwiches or how Mary freaked out on Tom for not wearing tails to dinner knowing Granny would be in attendance? All just funny little things that I love about Downton. Also, how about the fact that EVERYONE has to go outside whenever someone arrives or someone leaves. Not just the residents, the staff too. Nobody waves, they just stand and smile. Lastly, what does "Keen as mustard mean?  Pretty sure next weeks the finale. 9 episodes just isn't enough. 


HOUSE OF CARDS
I just want to make it clear that I do have a life. This weekend in addition to sleeping 8 hours both nights, I spun on Saturday and went to Pilates on Sunday. I went food shopping, went to the mall, caught Monuments Men, went out to dinner and also managed to watch the entire 2nd season of House of Cards. Damn it's good. REALLY good. Netflix makes the binge-ing  process so easy and so much fun. I just kept saying "one more episode and I'll..." next thing I knew, I was done. 13 episodes in a weekend. OMG that's insane isn't it? Here's the problem...I can't talk about it. For those of you NOT watching, seriously, you need to. For those of you who are, we are all at different points in the process and I SO don't want to spoil a single second of it for anyone. Trust me, there are some really big twists! If you've started...I can say this about the first episode and then I won't say anything else. HOLY S! Didn't see that coming. I was bummed, really bummed, but then as episode 1 become episode 2 and I got deeper and deeper into the season I forgot about what happened and moved on to the insanity that is Frank and Claire Underwood's life. With everything going on in their lives, they'd never have time to binge their own show even though we know they'd love it and devour it like we all are. I hope someone out there watches the entire season soon because I REALLY need someone to talk to about it. HOLY COW! 

EPISODES
No Castor this week, but I didn't really miss him at all. What a hilarious episode of Episodes though. Matt is just the best at getting himself in super hot water, not caring and moving on to the next thing. Gotta admit, I didn't see the twist with Morning's sister at all. Did you? Didn't seem to phase Matt in the least. No remorse whatsoever. Love that about him. Even though Carol can't bring herself to say the word "cancelled" out loud, we know Pucks! is a goner. But, at least now we know how Sean and Beverly will end up staying in Cali, but what will happen to Matt now that he has no show to shoot and no girlfriend to keep him busy? I'm sure both situations won't last long. I liked the scarf that Bev was knitting. Whenever I see people knitting I always wish I could knit, but I don't even wear scarves, so what would I knit if I learned? I'm totally off topic. Next...  

THE OTHER STUFF

Over the weekend, Meredith Viera subbed for Matt Lauer who was subbing for Bob "I Can't See A Thing" Costas at the Winter Olympics desk. Meredith wore a super weird sweater on Saturday night but I'm guessing Sochi's not really a mecca of fashion when one is out of clothes to host the Olympics in.  Tonight, I'm hearing Bob's back. Fingers crossed. 

I couldn't believe that Bethenny Frankel's talk show ever got the go ahead for an official first season. Or that Ellen was backing her.  I was a fan of Bethenny as a reality show personality. I loved her on Real Housewives of NYC and in all of her solo reality shows, but her talk show was terrible. The first time I watched it I knew it wouldn't last. Bethenny got the word on Friday that they were pulling the plug. Things aren't going that great for her in general. We all know about the divorce, plus her Skinny Girl beverage sales are down 25% YOY which isn't good. Net/net, she's good money wise, now she's gotta find a new project for herself. Maybe she'll just do the stay at home Mom thing for a while. I bet Jill Zarin's laughing her butt off. 

I don't watch Pretty Little Liars. I have a son not a daughter and he only watches SportsCenter so I didn't have to get on the PLL bandwagon or the Ravenswood spinoff bandwagon either. Gotta admit, I was surprised when I read that Ravenswood got cancelled. Didn't see it coming but I did notice that the shows buzz did die down quite a bit. It definitely didn't catch fire like it's predecessor. 

Cute little publicity stunt to celebrate Dallas's return to TNT next week. The Ewings are taking over a gas station and slashing prices for one day. The station and its location will be kept a secret until next Monday but then somewhere out there, a Ewing Energies branded gas station will be filling cars all day long at a discount. That's a fun idea, but it would be even better if Jesse Metcalf and Josh Henderson were pumping the gas in super tight uniforms to boot. The third season premieres 2/24 at 9pm. 

If you want to check out ABC's new show Mixology before its 2/26 premiere, the first 2 episodes are available now through 2/24 on the Watch ABC App. I haven't gotten to that one yet. I mean c'mon, I've been a little busy with this House of Cards insanity.

Tonight is the night, my FBFF Jimmy Fallon starts his reign over The Tonight Show. I know he's ready and I'm hoping he doesn't change too much. He's got a lot of great guests this week, especially Friday night when his BFF, Justin Timberlake stops by. I personally want to wish him luck. This will be the first time in my life that I will be watching and/or DVR'ing The Tonight Show. I wasn't really into it when Johnny was the host, never liked Jay, but now...I'll be a Tonight Show disciple. Break a leg Jimmy!

Monday's Trivia Question: Who was the Tonight Show host right BEFORE Johnny Carson? 


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

Monday, February 10, 2014

How Good Was the Beatles Special?



THE ANSWER TO FRIDAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: Franz Klammer was the Austrian downhill skier to take the gold in the 1976 Olympics. 

FIRST FIVES:John Romeo, Neil Moffatt, Bob Kaplan, Mitch Klein & Jim Wall
HONORABLE MENTION: Eric Schwartz

THE NUMBERS 

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
The Olympics-NBC 5.8/19.5
The Big Bang Theory-CBS 5.0/17.0
American Idol-FOX 3.0/10.9
The Millers-CBC 2.7/10.9
Two and a Half Men-CBS 1.8/8.1

Thursday's Cable Top 5
Pawn Stars-History 1.2/4.2
Big Bang Theory-TBS 1.1/2.7
Appalachian Outlaws-History .9/2.5
American Dad-Adult Swim .8/1.8
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo-TLC .8/2.0

Thursday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
Tonight Show with Jay Leno-NBC 79,400 Tweets
The Vampire Diaries-CW 85,800 Tweets
American Idol-FOX 37,500 Tweets
The Big Bang Theory-CBS 14,800 Tweets
Conan-TBS 13,500 Tweets

Friday's Broadcast Top 5
Olympics Opening Ceremonies-NBC 8.6/31.7 (down 9% vs Vancouver 2010)
20/20-ABC 1.2/4.9
Shark Tank-ABC 4.9
Undercover Boss-CBS 1.0/5.0
Last Man Standing-ABC .9/4.5

Friday's Cable Top 5
NA

Friday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings
WWE Friday Night Smackdown-Syfy  32,500 Tweets
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon-NBC 19,500 Tweets
Fashion Police-E! 1,800 Tweets
Letterman-CBS 1,200 Tweets
Arsenio Hall-Syndicated 1,000 Tweets

Leno finale numbers:
  • Biggest audience in 15 years (May 1988-Seinfeld Finale) 
  • 14.6 million viewers 
  •  3.8RA18-49 
  • Biggest rating since Conan's last night which did a 4.4 
  • Highest Thursday night since Prez Obama was on the show in March 2009 
  • My FBFF's show on Thursday night, delivered his biggest audience since his Superbowl special with 6.0 million viewers 
  • The 6.0 million viewers is a series record and the biggest audience for the "Late Night" franchise since June 93 which was Letterman's final episode and had 7.5 million viewers
THE SHOWS 


Grammy Salute to the Beatles (1st Hour)
I watched Olympics all day, so no need to watch the Primetime recap which was great because the Beatles tribute was not to be missed. I had goosebumps the entire time. Amazing original footage, great stories from people who were there and some incredible performances. Maroon 5, Joe Walsh, Jeff Lynne, Dave Grohl, Keith Urban and John Mayer were my faves. Joe Walsh was just brilliant. Not sure what John Mayer was wearing. It looked like he was wearing rain boots and coveralls to fix something in a garage and then stopped to go perform and was headed back to work. Hate to say this, because I love her, but Katy Perry was the weakest link in the chain. I don't think anyone should have performed "Yesterday" but if it someone had to, it shouldn't have been Katy. Pharrell and Brad Paisley performed together with dueling hats, which I found amusing.  So many celebs in the audience singing along with Paul and Ringo. Looked like Rita Wilson was having the time of her life. Tom...not so much. Lots of Yoko and Sean but no Julian. He's supposedly in African helping people but I'm betting he made little effort to be there. Letterman interviewed Paul and Ringo and while I totally get the reason why, I didn't love the interview. Of course the highlight was when the two honorees finally performed.  First separately and then together. Ringo was good, very bouncy and energized,  but Paul killed. Together they were incredible. Can you imagine if they decided to tour? I'd do anything to be there if they do. Killer special CBS. I wonder if it beats the Olympics in the ratings. If it doesn't, I bet it's close. 

Downton Abbey
As always,a lot of activity going on at Downton. Right off the bat big drama when Robert had to head to America to help his bro-in-law out of a jam. Mrs. Hughes knew that it would be a bad idea for Bates to leave Anna in her post-rape state, so she used her insanely great secret keeping skills and told Lady Mary the story so that she'd tell her Daddy not to take Bates with him. Of course this meant that Thomas got to go to NY as Bates's replacement.  Edith and Rose also left town and headed to London. Edith went for an illegal abortion but couldn't go through with it. Rose went to see her sexy African American boyfriend, Jack. Just realized as I'm typing that they are Rose and Jack...name the movie. Lady Grantham had bronchitis, so who better to take care of her than Mrs. Crawley. She needed to be needed and she sure got her wish. Gotta give Maggie Smith credit for allowing herself to look so horrible on TV. Best bit of the episode, the pigs finally arrived at Downton and I guess the pig man knows even less than me about pigs and forgot to check on their water. So, in less than a day the thirsty pigs became dehydrated and one died. Mary and Mr. Blake found the parched pigs and had to schelp buckets of water to all of them or they'd all be goners. Yes...Gasp...Mary watered the pigs, fell in the mud and got filthy dirty. IN HER DINNER CLOTHES. Can you imagine?  Good thing Daddy's away. Mr Gillingham and the rapist stopped by and Bates just KNEW he was the guy who raped his wife, but the credits rolled and nobody's been killed...Yet

Girls
Well the good news was that I didn't have to see Hannah naked this week. The bad news, I did have to see Ray and Marnie in bed and that literally gave me the heeby jeebies! So unnecessary. The entire Ray/Marnie thing has to stop. I can't take it. Hannah started her new gig at GQ where there's a guy version of her named Joel. There's also free snacks which is all Hannah needs. Gotta say, the snack room was pretty impressive. Maybe that's another reason prints in trouble? Anyway, Hannah's first day was amazing, second day she saw her entire future go out the window, had a meltdown, quit, came back, went home and passed out on the couch before Adam could tell her all about his great news. Not the worst episode ever but I still hated it and can't wait to hate next weeks episode more.

Episodes
This shows turned pretty sexual lately. I don't have any issues with that, it just seems to have evolved so far from what it started out to be. Castor's still having a "hard" time. (Pun intended). Sean and Beverly's problems in the bedroom seem to be over thanks to one stint with a sex therapist who made Beverly speak like Yoda, but you'll have to tune in to know why. Matt threatened Merc with his life for stealing paintings from his ex-wifes house. Merc's ex is blind, so sort of funny that she would freak out about the paintings being gone. Matt was the one who told her they were missing. After the threat Merc replaced the paintings with huge canvas's with profanity and threats all over them. Hilarious, but one of those things you need to see for yourself. The show ended with Castor cancelling Pucks. Not sure what's next since Episodes has already been renewed for another season. Guess we'll find out soon enough. 
THE OTHER STUFF 

And the first singing competition show to go down is...FOX's  X Factor. Simon's going back to England and the shows going bye bye. No surprise if you ask me. I was surprised that the show came back for a 3rd season in the first place. Ratings are down for Idol this year so far The Voice's next cycle doesn't start til after the Olympics, but the formats getting old and only Idol's been somewhat successful in launching some contestants careers.  The problem is that there were too many, too often and for too many hours each.  If it were once a week for an hour, maybe we all wouldn't have gotten so sick of it, but 3 hours a week each is just too much of a commitment especially when the talent and the judges just aren't that compelling.

Thursday night's Jimmy Kimmel was so hilarious that ABC's airing it again tonight in Primetime. For those of you that have been following the Damon/Kimmel "war" this is the next installment and well worth seeing. I've watched twice already. Matt Damon's just hilarious and all of his Monuments Men co-stars went along with Kimmel for the ride. All I know is that I'm betting that Matt Damon's revenge episode, whenever it is, will be epic.

Friday night was my FBFF, Jimmy Fallon's last show at 12:30. He's movin on up...to 11:30, across the hall to studio 6B where Johnny Carson started his reign on The Tonight Show. 6.6 million people tuned in Friday night to see my boy say goodbye to 12:30. This was the biggest rating since June of 93 when Letterman said goodbye and delivered 7.3 million people.  Just remember bud, I was there way before all these newbies. I've been there since Fever Pitch!  On the demo, Jimmy delivered a 2.2 RA18-49. If you didn't see the final musical number, check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otRr23Brir8

I think I mentioned that Amazon Prime's 2nd pilot season has begun. There are 5 shows for adults to choose from. Only 3 of the 5 peaked my interest. The other two were detective/murder type stuff that I've got no interest in. Anyway, I enjoyed all 3 of the shows I watched. In addition to Mozart in the Jungle, there's a show called The Rebels and a show called Transparent. The Rebels has some big names behind it including Michael Strahan. It's about a women who knows nothing about football whose husband dies leaving her the team. Transparent is a pretty crazy drama about a pretty crazy dysfunctional family lead by Jeffrey Tambor. Watch um...vote...tell me which one you voted for.

If you've been on Facebook this week then you've been bombarded with a newsfeed filled with 1 minute movies but this one's gotta be the best of the bunch. Walter White's Facebook Look Back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6_w7lDQcCU

Monday's Trivia Question: I've got a them week going...here's the first one: Name the show that starred the Ricardo's and the Mertz's


WWTM-Kristy
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