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There were big swings at 10 PM on a otherwise pretty uneventful Wednesday night. After declining for 2 consecutive weeks and last Wednesday logging CBS’ lowest-rated original telecast in the hour in 7 years last week, the network’s new light legal drama The Defenders (2.5/7, 9.9 million viewers overall) bounced back, up 14% from last week among adults 18-49 and winning its time slot in the demo for the first time. CBS’ series may have benefitted from having less legal drama competition in the 10 PM hour last night. ABC preempted its new court drama The Whole Truth to air a 20/20 special on the Chilean miners rescue (1.8/5, 6.2 million). The newsmagazine improved on The Whole Truth‘s last week ratings performance in the time slot by 29% in 18-49, logging ABC’s largest audience in the hour in 10 months. Meanwhile, things look grim for NBC’s new crime drama Law & Order: Los Angeles (1.9/6), which was down 21% from last week, following last week’s 25% drop from the series’ premiere. LOLA has not been helped by the fact that its lead-in, veteran Law & Order: SVU (2.2/6), has also been dropping fast, down another 15% last night. Meanwhile, the network’s new spy drama Undercovers (1.5/4) seems to have stopped the bleeding, flat with last week but only .1 ahead of CW’s America’s Next Top Model in the 8PM hour. Other highlights from last night:
Fox’s reality series Hell’s Kitchen (3.1/9) marked its 100th episode with another solid performance last night, down a fraction from last week and leading the network to a second place finish for the night in the demo, .1 behind CBS.
ABC’s Modern Family (4.7/13) was up a fraction from last week to post its second-highest demo rating ever. Also up, by 9%, was Cougar Town (3.2/9), while the 8-9 PM ABC comedies were both down, The Middle (2.4/8, -4%) and new sitcom Better with You (2.1/6), which slipped -9% after a promising ratings uptick last week.
CBS’s Survivor Nicaragua (3.7/11, 12.1 million) and Criminal Minds (3.5/9, 13.8 million) were both virtually flat with last week. CBS nabbed its fourth consecutive Wednesday win this season in both 18-49 and total viewers.
CW’s America’s Next Top Model (1.5/5 in adults 18-34, 3 million) hit cycle highs in all key demos and total viewers. New cheerleading drama Hellcats (1.1/3, 2 million) was pretty much even with last week.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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I’m still rooting for “Better With You” partly because it’s gotten better and partly because it’s in an incredibly tough spot – the only multi-camera show outside CBS, dropped into a single-camera lineup with no promotion by a network clearly embarrassed to have a multi-cam. Under those circumstances, the fact that it didn’t do “Hank” numbers is I suppose a small blessing, though of course it will still deserve to be canceled if its ratings don’t get better.
Still, I find it a sad reminder. In the ’90s when everything was multi-cam, it got boring. When the single-cam shows like “Scrubs” and “Malcolm” came along, there was the hope that there would finally be variety of styles in comedy. And instead there’s no variety on any network: either everything’s multi-cam (CBS) or everything’s single-cam (all the other networks once BWY goes). Some network really needs to do an hour of multi-cams followed by an hour of single, or vice versa.
I am LOVING Better with you
GREAT cast
What exactly is a different between the two types-multicam and singlecam?
I watch a lot of TV and I never noticed anything.
Single-cam: Shot without an audience, with multiple takes, like a movie. They used to have laugh tracks added (Andy Griffith Show, Leave It To Beaver, M*A*S*H). Now they don’t (Modern Family, Cougar Town, The Middle).
Multi-cam: Done like a play, with the scene played straight through and three or four cameras recording from different angles. Usually done in front of an audience. Invented by “I Love Lucy,” used for any show with a live audience (Seinfeld, Friends, Big Bang Theory).
The single-cam is like a movie and the multi-cam is like a play, and now that single-cams no longer have laugh tracks, the multi-cam is the only sitcom format that has laughter on the soundtrack (which people keep mistaking for a laugh track).
Most of the biggest hits since the ’70s have been multi-cam shows – with exceptions, of course, like M*A*S*H and Modern Family – but network execs, except at CBS and the Disney Channel, are down on the format because it was over-used in the ’90s.
Undercovers beat the CW by a whisker (with a show that probably costs 5 times as much) so one.has to assume NBC will celebrate by giving them the back 9.
I still cannot fathom that NBC is not tweaking it’s schedule despite everything failing. Even the once reliable SVU is fading fast on the 9pm time slot – just like it did last fall!! Can’t they honestly save what’s worth saving.
This is utter stupidity on NBC’s side. And tonight ‘The Apprentice’ will probably notch another record low.
Funny thing is, last year’s nurses’ drama ‘Mercy’ was pulling higher numbers than ‘Undercovers’ is doing now. That drama, which by far was not an 8PM drama could have probably flourished elsewhere at a later timeslot.
Law & Order LA is unwatchable. From Corey Stoll’s moustache to the CSI Miami color pallette, to the worst overactor in Hollywood, Terrence Howard, to how it paints LA as a ridiculous coke-addled fame-whore society (hmm..on second thought..). But the only saving grace of this show is the wonderful Alfred Molina. What a waste of talent. I’ll be watching The Whole Truth instead of L&O at 10pm! (Until they wise up and move SVU to the 10pm slot)
I’m still a huge SVU fan, but it’s too bad Paula Patton had to leave the show for MI4 – She seemed like she would have been a good, different type of DA on the show. It was a waste of a special appearance.
Undercovers will play out its run – JJ Abrams is too big of a name to cancel for NBC. So, if it doesnt improve, I think it will still run its 13 episodes, but the back 9 is still a question.
I believe you are right about the Abrams Factor, but I feel there is something else…the Elephant in the Room…
It’s the only network show that has Black leads in it. (Well, unless you want to include the Cleveland Show) Not only that, it’s a *drama* where there has not been a not been a successful one since, in years. (Anybody remember Taye Diggs in Day Break? I rest my case)
For years there’s been talk about how Black people can’t carry a series, and how they don’t travel overseas and ..well…they’re being proven right.
NBC probably doesn’t want to pull the plug too quickly. I mean, after this, it’s going to be a decade or more before you see another Black show on the air. They want to be able to say, “Look we gave the show every opportunity we could and the audience wasn’t there.” And it’s truth.
*Unless you count the Cleveland Show
Your statement might ring true if thi show was good, but it’s horrible, black leads be damned. JJ made a bad show, why is it not falling at his feet instead of the black leads. In case we aren’t paying attention, The Whole Truth has white leads and still can’t find an audience. Chuck has white leads and can’t find an audience either.
Maybe they should try and give minority creators a crack at this instead of getting JJ to phone in a corny version of Alias with European black people. His Obama-like spies suck and have zero chemistry.
Well, I was betting someone would attribute the failure of Undercover a lot earlier. When you are afraid to blame the creators and the network is too easy a target, lets blame those racist viewers. Puh-leeze. Nice cast, but not as well paced and clever as Human Target, not as dark as Nikita, it never found it’s rhythm.
And this season the only what-were-they-thinking that surpasses LOLA was Outlaw.
Seth, you’re not witty or sharp enough to be playing the race card when evaluating a show’s ability to pull an audience.
Leave the ethnographics to someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Seth, when you get the chance be sure to watch TV before you comment on it. CSI is being led by Laurence Fishburne, NCIS:LA is headlined by LL Cool J and Hawthorne is healined by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Oh, and Forrest Whittaker is headling the new Criminal Minds spin-off.
So, it seems we won’t be waiting 10 years for another “black-led” show. We’re in the middle of three of them, and have a fourth on the way.
The lesson to be learned here Seth: Being stupid is it’s own punishment.
Dude, I have to take real issue with this — Corey Stoll’s mustache is awesome.
NBC is ruining SVU, the one thing is has going for it. It’s painful to watch this play out. Put it back on it’s original time slot and let LOLA crash and burn.
LOLA is failing possibly because the original Law and Order (21 season)should be following SVU, loyals fans will stay with SVU…forget LOLA just not happening….and NBC was worried about the ratings for the mother ship. Speaking of Mercy I really liked that one too…oh well….
Come next week, the only shows on NBC with a 2.0 or more in the 18-49 demo will be TBL, maybe L&O:SVU, a couple of the comedies on Thursday and Sunday Night Football. So much for investing on quality dramas, spending a fortune on duds like JJ Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf. Who on earth greenlights pilots over at NBC? And how long before SVU is moved back to the 10pm slot. I expect Dick to be with no shows come next year.
I was wondering, can Comcast change their mind and say, no thanks! Even with Sunday Night Football NBC will finish this week behind all the other 3 networks in all demos. I can only imagine what happens come January with no football.
Maybe NBC should change its name and logo, a bit like Gap did. I mean it can’t get any worse than this.
Hey Freddie – Undercovers will be lucky to see some of their remaining episodes air on Wednesday before going Outlaw way, that is Saturday night.
Sam – I agree with you 100%, what is moronic trying to do, kill their only drama that works great at 10pm and repeats better than most of their new original shows.
The problem NBC is currently facing is that they don’t have any shows standing by to replace their current duds. Also, reactions during upfronts for some of their mid season shows are weak at best, i.e Harry’s Law and The Cape. Don’t even get me started on the silly David E. Kelly show.
It looks like another 4th place finish for NBC this season.
Is it too late for REX IS NOT YOUR LAWYER? Can they revive that?
Like Clem put it: it’s simply sooo painful to watch a show like SVU die knowing that it’s not ready to meet it’s demise.
NBC shoulda kept the mothership!!
L&O:SVU is very weak this year. 90% of the one-liners are clunkers and the stories are increasingly contrived. Even the acting is not as strong as previous years. So, that doesn’t help LOLA, which is boring as hell. There’s no edge to it.
I actually think SVU has been much better this year so far than the last 3 previous years. The Love Hewitt episode was fantastic and the opener was at least watchable. It still is no where near as good as it once was around season 6 and 7, but it is not at it’s worst either.
Everybody should make their lives a lot better by watching Terriers, the best new show that not enough people are watching.
I agree AM, SVU has been pretty good this season, especially the first episode and the Jennifer Love Hewitt episode. I just miss the days where they would get a case and solve it in a cool way – most episodes these days start with one murder that leads to another case completely which leads to a THIRD completely unrelated case that they seem to solve in 12 minutes. It feels like SVU is being written by ADD-ridden 22 year olds. That being said, I’ll watch Benson and Stabler until the end! The supporting cast has become completely unnecessary though this season. They could fire them all except for Kragen and the show wouldn’t suffer. (maybe keep Tamara Tunie too cause I like her)
Exactly. It becomes entirely too frustrating to switch from one case to another, to another. I have to wait until at least half way into it before I decide if it’s going to be a good one or if it’s going to go off into a crazy direction. SVU use to be successful with keeping you on your toes without going this route. They stopped caring about supporting cast after Diane Neal left and the shuffle of incompetent ADA’s started.
How the hell does NBC expect SVU to do well when Undercovers is giving it the worst lead-in in all of network TV?
Please, NBC, cancel LOLA. Just admit you were wrong. Revive the mothership and cut your loses with LOLA. Can you imagine the ratings if you were to bring back L&O?! HUGE!
SVU is in season 12 — lead-in is not the problem. The issue is that: 1) CM is kicking it’s butt and 2) SVU really belongs at 10/9. Move Parenthood to Wed at 8/7, Undercovers to 9/8, Donald at 10/9 (only reality) and LOLA to Thursday at 10/9, where it doesn’t compete with two other legal dramas.
SVU is still a decent show. The Love Hewitt episode in particular was fantastic and she should receive some Emmy consideration for her performance. LOLA, on the other hand, continues to stink and the rotating of the DAs from episode to episode is just dumb.
LOLA has actually gotten a little bit better each week. But it still has massive problems – one lead who can’t act at all (Ulrich), and another who seems bored or perhaps annoyed that he’s doing TV (Terrence Howard).
I can’t believe that Wolf and NBC blew the crucial issue of casting, when they did such a good job of refreshing the Mother Ship three years ago.
LOLA might not be crashing if it didn’t indulge every southern California cliche in the book. It’s LA seen through the lens of NY and it was tiresome when Woody Allen was doing it 20 plus years ago and its tiresome still. How about scripting your shows as crime dramas and not a string of stale cultural references.
LOLA might be the worst show on NBC. (that hasn’t been cancelled yet) It’s unwatchable. Dick Wolf’s “LA Dragnet” with Eva Longoria and Ed O’Neil was far superior, but nobody even knew that show was actually on the air.
As handsome as the two leads of “Undercovers” are — I don’t see an ounce of chemistry between them. It’s a clever premise — but “Covert Affairs” covers the same ground and is far superior. Gugu Mbatha-Raw has GAME and will be offered better projects in the future. Watch her, she’s a good one. She rises above the dreck of this show. I cannot say the same of her co-star. Which reminds me….
…….as cute as Maggie G is — she cannot…. she just cannot act. She reads her lines as if she’s reciting the yellow pages. She’s surrounded by talent but the show comes to a screeching halt when she opens her mouth. How “Nikita” survives is a mystery…and if I hear a reference to “black helicopters” again I’m going to assume George Noory is an uncredited writer….