After seven seasons NBC’s 30 Rock (1.9/5) ended its run last night with a one-hour special, another Conan O’Brien cameo, a snow globe and some stiff competition. “Our finale is on this Thursday at 8 PM, up against The Big Bang Theory, so just tape The Big Bang Theory for once, for crying out loud!,” Tina Fey said at the SAG Awards last weekend as she accepted the trophy for best female actor in a comedy series. Someone must have been listening because last night’s finale was up 36% over last week’s show and hit its highest viewership total in more than two years with 4.796 million watching. That’s almost 2 million more than the 2.843 million who watched 30 Rock’s Season 6 finale on May 17, which got a 1.4/4 in Live+Same Day ratings.
Related: How Tina Fey’s ’30 Rock’ Lasted Seven Seasons And Changed The Game For Female Comedy Creators
As one show ended on NBC on Thursday another began with the 10 PM premiere of Do No Harm (0.9/3). Though it might not be around for long. Starring Rescue Me alumni Steve Pasquale, the contemporary Jekyll and Hyde was the lowest rated in-season premiere ever of any scripted show on the any of the Big Four networks. Down 55% from last spring’s Awake premiere, Do No Harm pulled in 3.13 million viewers in the slot usually occupied by Rock Center.
Of course, despite Fey’s SAG Awards pleas, The Big Bang Theory (5.3/15) didn’t exactly roll over on Wednesday. While BBT was down 17% from its last original on January 10, which was also its all time viewership high, the show was still was the most watched show of the night and tops in key demos. The science geek sitcom pulled in an audience of 17.51 million. Back after three weeks of repeats, it was a full slate of originals on CBS on Wednesday with some slight slippage. Two And A Half Men (3.9/11) was down 7% from its last original. Person Of Interest (3.2/9) dipped 3% from its January 10 show and Elementary (3.3/8) was down 8%. With 14.01 million watching, CBS won the night in terms of total viewers and among adults 18-49.
With the last of its audition shows, American Idol (4.5/13) wrapped up the third week of its 12th season. Wednesday’s one-hour episode was down 12% from last week show. Following Idol on Fox, Glee (2.1/6) took a hit, falling 19% from its strong winter break return on January 24. Besides 30 Rock, NBC last night had back-to-back episodes of The Office, its next comedy to come to an end this year. The 9 PM (2.1/5) broadcast bopped up 5% from last week’s show. In the slot usually occupied by freshman 1600 Penn, the 9:30 PM (1.9/5) Office special airing tied a series low for The Office.
ABC started the night with a repeat of Shark Tank (1.1/3). That was followed by an original episode of Grey Anatomy (2.8/7), which dipped 7% from last week. Back after last week’s repeat, Scandal (2.7/8) rose 4% from its January 17 show. The Vampire Diaries (1.3/4) kicked off the night on CW, followed by Beauty and the Beast (0.7/2). Both were even with last week’s shows.
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The wonderful irony about 30 Rock is that NBC not only stuck with it…it permitted the show to make fun of this woefully underperforming network.
An oxymoron executed at the highest level.
Well done 30 Rock, and a reluctant kudo to NBC, too.
It pains me to say it but the ’30 Rock’ finale was not good. More singing from Jane Krakowski? Great, way to keep twisting the knife even as the show faded to black. Hey, does everyone know that Jane Krakowski can sing? Wow!
Except that wasn’t the ending of the episode. You need to watch the sequence after that commercial break to get the real ending.
POI show that is true new broadcast hit. Best scripted and acted crime drama. But no standart CBS cop show! Much more unique, creative and entertaining with a lot of humour!
What CBS must do now to make POI drama beast is heavy and properly advertising during super bowl and grammys. Jonathan Nolan will make his debut as director on POI episode “Relevance” – February 21, 2013 and this is Sarah Shahi series debut too. Sarah Shahi role sound like future POI spin-off so CBS have a lot in stake here.(more money and one more drama hit) POI is hot and fresh so better chance for successful spin-off.
I swear a version of this comment is on here every Friday. We get it. It’s a good show.
More than that, it’s great. I think people keep commenting on it in the hopes of getting more people to watch it because it’s on CBS, though, which isn’t a network typically known for exciting, creative TV.
Person of Interest is the best show on CBS right now I must admit (sorry the Good Wife), but comparing to other 4232328233223 drama shows on the air right now, the show is nothing really special to be honest. Some episodes that are outstanding, but most of the time it’s the CBS shows usual-fare… meh.
And also if CBS is paying you do to brass about POI on this website, please at least modify your comment each time. I saw your comments so many times, I have it memorized.
Couldn’t even make it through the season finale.
I used to love this show but the wheels came off a long time ago.
I’m not sure I could even recap what happened in last night’s ep.
Scandal is gonna surpass Grey’s Anatomy soon. Wow. Who saw that coming?
Scandal is definitely on its way to being one of the biggest new hits on Thursday. It’s been a long time since any new ABC show has experienced the kind of upward trajectory that this sophmore hit has been on. Modern Family is the last ABc show I can think of that rose greatly during its 2nd season. I’d love to see Last Man Standing get such an incease this season given how extraordinaryly funny its entire 2nd season has been thus far. But it’s hard to switch from Tuesday at 8pm to Friday 8pm and expect to gain viewers even though LMS has been consistently solid for a Friday show. Grey’s Anatomy is just potent, period. GA, if on CBS could potentially do twice the viewer and demo numbers it gets on ABC. It hasn’t had a decent lead-in since the end of season 3 Ugly Betty. After that UB went to pot when the writing fell off and ABC brought in flop after flop, save for the half-a-season of Winter Wipeout. ABC looks to remain the doormat of a network that Disney has turned it into.
To be fair, do no harm got a crappy time slot going up against Scandal & Elementary. I would have watched it on another night or different time, especially since I loved him on rescue me and was hoping to see him portray another character while still bringing some of his humor to the show. I guess I will never know how good it is if it stays in that time slot though.
That sucks for Do No Harm. I thought the premiere was great.
Scandal is inching up and up every week. People seem to forget that Grey’s was no monster hit right out of the gate. If Scandal keeps up the quality and ABC gives Season 3 the major promo push it deserves, it could really become one of the network’s biggest hits and start getting some awards attention for Kerry Washington.
All in all…30 Rock was one of the best shows on TV, ever..
Alec Baldwin’s character is legend.
Outside of one ill-fitting Kent State joke, this show was a pleasure.
But, I found the finale to be a bit ‘labored,’ that being said….
I’m sad to see it go…..
Person of interest must be example how a drama should be written and acted. Best scripted show on TV – broadcast and cable. Best show. Person of interest is upgrade version of NCIS/24!
John Reese is bigger and better than James Bond. He is Reese, Mr. Reese.
Jonathan Nolan will make his debut as director on Person of Interest episode “Relevance” – February 21, 2013. This will be Sarah Shahi series debut too(her role sound like future POI spin-off). Best scripted and acted drama add and great names as directors. Hope JJ Abrams will direct at least one episode like Nolan. May be with Jennifer Lawrence as guest star in POI season 3. Ratings will be insane. CBS can make one hour TBBT as lead in for “Relevance” major episode. They already do that on monday block with one hour 2BG. And CBS must advertise Nolan debut and episode “Relevance” like crazy on super bowl and grammys. From now i can say that will take Emmy and golden globe nomination. And if successful PoI spin-off will make fans and CBS happy.
Uhhh Hey Petar, do you somehow rep Jonathan Nolan? Jesus…
Easy Petar – take it down notch.
Oh jeez. Petar posted this exact verbiage a couple of weeks ago. Get new material Petar.
No matter how many times you post the same text Petar you will not be able to make me hate Person of Interest. It is a really great show indeed!
People trashing the brilliant 30 Rock finale and praising Do No Harm? Did I stumble onto The Onion or does this site just have some very special readers?
Ha!
Do No Harm just didn’t work. I just didn’t buy the time concept… Woulda been much better if they had just made him a guy with horribly conflicting moral identities, trying to come to terms with what type of man he wanted to be. Instead, it felt incredibly gimmicky and silly.
Does anyone else think that the Conan “cameo” was a little CGI-ish? Like he filmed it in California and the show CGI’ed into 30 Rock in New York.
@Bob – It was reported that the Conan cameo was filmed on a Green Screen with Tina Fey. They didn’t film it on the 30 Rock set.
I sort of thought that was the point of his Cameo.
Person Of interest is one of the best shows on all of tv. Its well done and exciting. The hour flies by and thats the way it should be done.
It flies right by me… I don’t watch at all. And better for it.
Prime Suspect,The Firm, & Awake. It would appear most programs on Thursday night on Nbc “Do No Harm” to the competition in terms of ratings. What’s next on Thursdays/10 PM on this so-called network?
HEY CBS FANBOYS,
Come up with ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING which your network can’t come up since they rip-off the other network’s ideas with and you can resume posting with other viewers.
The REAL TRUTH is that CBS gives viewers what they want. NCIS and Big Bang have been number one now for too many seasons for it to be a fluke.
It’s ABC, FOX and NBC that need to quit pretending they’re cable channels and become BROADcasters again. Until they do CBS will continue to have the field to themselves.
Completely agree with you “THE TRUTH.” CBS doesn’t have original programming. All of its storylines and plots from every popular show has been taken from simple-minded and dated predecessor shows on various networks. The fact that CBS has consistently generated the highest ratings of all of the major networks in the US, doesn’t tell me that their shows are of high quality, because I’ve given these shows a chance by watching them and seeing what all of the hype was about, instead, the high ratings that CBS accrues, tells me the level of asinine viewers that make up the US population.
Scheduling a premiere episode against ‘Scandal’ & ‘Elementary’ was beyond stupid.
The premise of Do No Harm makes my skin crawl. I couldn’t make myself watch it.
Love Elementary… fun, intelligent, off beat… appealing cast… whats not to like?
NBC got exactly what it deserved with dnh. Just a stupid tired concept. Boring boring dumb.
Thanks for all the laughs and good luck in all of everybody’s futures.
Do No Harm. Epic fail by the promotion dept. Granted the show was doomed from the onset. The promotion Dept should have been able to pull better numbers out of it. It never was clear what the show was about.