- Not a stellar season for network TV so far, with CBS the only one of the top five networks with more prime-time viewers last week than it had for the same week a year before. It’s been a rout so far for CBS, which is ironically the one network that I don’t watch a single show on, on account of all of their scripted, non-Survivor and Amazing Race programming absolutely sucking. Even so, ten of the nation's 20 most-watched prime-time shows were on CBS, according to Nielsen Media Research. Leading the way, the new E.R., i.e. a program that has clearly run its course and as years past when it should be canceled yet just won't die: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Also, for inexplicable reason, CBS is also doing well with its new Simon Baker series, “The Mentalist,” which was Nielsen's No. 5 show last week. Having tuned in for less than one episode and being so underwhelemd I wrote an angry email to CBS demanding a refund of my time, I don’t get that either. One of the networks struggling the worst is ABC, which is clearly lagging while it waits for the January return of its lone good show, Lost. ABC's only bright spot was "Samantha Who?," the Christina Applegate-centric series that had 11.4 million viewers. While I do wish Applegate well as she battles breast cancer, that doesn’t mean her show is any good, because it isn’t. It was the second most-popular sitcom on TV, behind CBS' "Two and a Half Men." Fox isn’t doing well either, but since 24 is just around the corner, things will be looking up soon. However, this past week the network had a startling 5 million fewer viewers this year than the same week a year ago. And what was at the heart of the problem? Baseball, namely the network's coverage of the National League Championship Series between Philadelphia and Los Angeles, which laid a serious egg (guess maybe we would have been better off with the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, eh?). The deciding fifth game of the NLCS had barely more than 8 million viewers.
As for NBC, which has a stellar show in Heroes and a solid on in Chuck, was actually led by “Saturday Night Live” with Sarah Palin, which had an estimated 14 million viewers. But that you can chalk up to the curiousity factor of a major political candidate appearing, not to the actual appeal of SNL itself. The totals for the week were: CBS averaging 11.5 million viewers (7.3 rating, 12 share), ABC averaging 9.2 million (5.9, 10), NBC averaging 7.2 million (4.6, 7), Fox averaging 6.7 million (4.2, 7) and the lowly CW (with it’s schedule filled with about a dozen variations of the same damn concept, namely spoiled rich kids and their fake problems) averaging 2.1 million (1.4, 2). So it’s good to see a total ass hat like CW exec Dawn Ostroff (you still suck for canceling Gilmore Girls, Everwood AND Veronica Mars, you tool!) in dead last. Here are your top shows, proving irrefutably that actual quality of a show has nothing to do with its ratings numbers:
1. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 19.27 million viewers.
2. "NCIS," CBS, 18.04 million viewers.
3. "Dancing with the Stars," ABC, 17.76 million viewers.
4. "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 15.48 million viewers.
5. "The Mentalist," CBS, 14.94 million viewers.
6. "Dancing with the Stars Results," ABC, 14.82 million viewers.
7. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 14.8 million viewers.
8. "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 14.72 million viewers.
9. "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.53 million viewers.
10. "House," Fox, 13.27 million viewers.
I hope you’re ashamed of yourself, America, I know I am…..
- So apparently his first-round TKO by an obscure, unknown MMA fighter wasn’t just the death of Kimbo Slice’s career, it also helped expedite the demise of the brand he was fighthing for. After sSilce was decimated by Seth Petruzelli during a bout televisted Oct. 4 on CBS as part of its partnership with EliteXC mixed martial arts, observers declared the Slice’s career had all but ended and that he was now little more than a punch line. Now comes news that the parent company of EliteXC is closing its doors for good. T.J. Thompson, an executive at ProElite Inc., says he was informed that the company would close for good this week and would file for bankruptcy protection. The company is shutting down effective immediately, meaning that an EliteXC card scheduled for Nov. 8 in Reno, Nev., has been canceled and bouts on that night’s card, including Joey Villasenor fighting Robbie Lawler for the circuit's middleweight title, have been scrapped. But you haven’t heard the last of EliteXC - just not in a good way. The bout between Slice and Petruzelli is under investigation by the Florida State Athletic Commission following comments Petruzelli after the fight suggesting that he bribed to trade punches with Slice rather than employ a more technical game plan that would have easily defeated a raw, inexperienced fighter like Kimbo. A late push to save ProElite failed after Showtime Networks, which owns a 20 percent stake in ProElite, filed a notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its intention to enter negotiations to purchase the company outright. Those negotiations failed and now the company is kaput, which would be a problem if it hadn’t been the most amateur, second-rate MMA circuit around anyhow…..
- How do you manage to get arrested 37 times and convicted 30 times in your life? No, I’m not being rhetorical, I’m honestly wondering how that happens. You get arrested and convicted that many times, you shouldn’t be a free man or woman ever again and shouldn’t have a chance to get arrested again. Guess no one told that to Katherine Kelly, a 76-year-old New York pickpocket who has busted 37 times and convicted 30 times, yet was free enough to get caught pinching wallets at a NYC grocery store last week. Kelley was indicted yet again in a Manhattan Criminal Court Tuesday, a routine she should be very familiar with by this point. This latest run-in with the law comes after she was apprehended last Wednesday at a Fairway grocery store in New York City's Upper West Side after taking the wallet of an undercover sergeant. I’m surprised this didn’t happen at a doughnut shop, because no sooner did Kelly snatch the wallet than another police officer saw here lift it from a shopping cart and hide it under her bra. Two cops in such a small area and it’s not a doughnut shop? But I digress…..it’s just astonishing that someone’s grandma is out there averaging an arrest every two years of her life, even if you count her childhood. She has used numerous aliases over the years as well, so she’s not just a one-dimensional felon. Kelly was charged with grand larceny in the fourth degree and appeared before Judge Barry Kamins on Tuesday. Jack Ryan of the New York City Department of Probation says his department is infinitely familiar with Ms. Kelly. “We knew of her as far back as 1981,” he said. Her most recent stint in jail came when Kelly served six months for burglary. To top it off, at the time of last week's arrest, police had a warrant in her name for failing to report for probation. Look, I know this lady is a scumbag and all, but am I the only one who gets a laugh out of some 76-year-old woman, pick-pocketing and zeroing in on her 40th arrest? Didn’t think so…..
- Just a random travel thought on my part, not that I am a qualified tour guide or travel professional, but if you are reading this and you are an American, you may want to think twice about that trip you’re planning to Ecuador. Seems that going there means you run the risk of a brutal attack that could leave you fighting for you life. Such is the story of two Americans who suffered a brutal attack last week while on vacation in the Latin American nation. State Department spokesman Robert Wood confirmed yesterday that the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador had been informed that two Americans from Oregon were attacked in the city of Esmeraldas, on Ecuador's northern coast. Privacy laws prevented Wood from disclosing more, but according to two other two State Department officials, the man was stabbed more than 24 times and that his fiancée was beaten and raped. Thankfully, the couple has been evacuated to the United States for treatment, but you can’t help but think that their nightmare is just beginning. The two wrote a blog throughout their trip and in the most recent post, the woman wrote that her fiancé was in intensive care after three surgeries. How and why she would even want to write after what she and her fiancé have been through, I don’t know, but mad props for being so courageous. However, the message was not a good one. “I was informed by the head surgeon there is no certainty he will survive,” she wrote. Not exactly the trip you hope for, not after getting engaged, selling off all your possessions and embarking on a year-long trip. This is the kind of adventure most of us would love going on but not have the courage to try. Unfortunately, this couple seems to have been a bit too naïve about safety, posting that they occasionally hitchhiked and visited the homes of random strangers. At present, the State Department's Web site advises caution when traveling to the northern border region of Ecuador, including Esmeraldas, but that warning may need to be upgraded and written in bold, all-capital lettering. What with at least 10 U.S. citizens having been kidnapped and one killed near Ecuador's border with Colombia since 1998, it may be a place we all want to avoid. Best wishes for a full recovery, both mentally and physically, for these two individuals…..
- The penultimate episode of Season 3 of Greek was a funny one, as most episodes have been this season. With Rusty on edge dealing with Kirk, a friend of his roommate Dale, arriving to make a mess of things in the final two weeks of the semester, there were plenty of laughs. Kirk is a childhood friend of Dale’s that Dale has chosen to be his roommate next school year when Rusty will be moving into the Kappa Tau house to live. Looking to fill his roommate void, Dale turns to Kirk, who left Bob Jones University (yes, the uber-strict religious college in South Carolina) and is coming to Cyprus Rhodes. Kirk arrives and shows his weirdness immediately by revealing a predilection for hiding in bizarre places (under beds, in clothes hampers, etc.) and jumping out to surprise people. Added to that, it turns out that Kirk isn’t the purity-centric, straight-edged, conservative guy Dale believes him to be. Actually, Kirk was kicked out of Bob Jones for being a pot head and alcoholic. Kirk even tries to get Rusty to score him some pot, an offer Rusty declines. In the end, Rusty decides to confront Dale with the truth about his friend. Dale refuses to believe Rusty until he and Kirk show up at a Kappa Tau ‘70s party and Kirk is acting like a crazy, drugged-out lunatic and Dale finds a flask of tequila in Kirk’s discarded jacket. Finding the flask leads Rusty, Dale and Kirk to all get popped by the campus police for possession of an open container, sending them to jail for a few hours. Rusty and Dale are released, but Kirk is left behind - with a warning from Rusty, that he is throwing away a friendship with a great guy in Dale. That ends the night for Rusty, because back at the Kappa Tau house, Cappie is finding life equally tough as he tries to set up a threesome in his bedroom. This comes in response to Wade and Beaver giving him a hard-time about his romantic slump, saying that people are calling him a “serial monogamist.” Cappie aims to blow that thinking out the water with a threesome, but the quest earns him plenty of slaps to the face and zero takers - until he finds old friend and easy hook-up Lisa Lawson. She agrees to the threesome but bails when the other girl turns out to be a girl whose boyfriend she stole last semester. Undeterred, Cappie finds another girl to take part and she’s about to get her frined to join in when both disappear and end up hooking up with another KT brother instead. Cappie ends up waking up in the morning with Wade and Beaver in his bed, both of them displaced by the threesome in the other room. The action at the Zeta Beta Zeta house is less sexual and more political, with new president Ashleigh struggling in her new role and BFF Casey still jealous and overbearing in trying to “help” out her pal. The big issue is which fraternity the ZBZ’s will pair with for rush week next semester. The sisters want Omega Chi for rush “pref,” something ex-prez Frannie promises to make happen by talking to her boyfriend and Omega Chi president Evan Chambers. Evan agrees to hold off on naming the Omega Chi’s pref choice until Asleigh caves in and asks for Frannie’s help on the matter, thus giving power in the house back to Frannie even if she isn’t president. So despite hosting a party at Dobler’s with a boxing pay-per-view for the Omega Chi’s, Ashleigh is unable to secure the invite. She caves and asks for Frannie’s help, but when the Omega Chi’s finally do extend the invite, something odd happens. Drawing inspiration from a talk with her friend and the show’s resident gay dude Calvin, Ashleigh turns to Angelina Jolie for inspiration and decides to do her own thing even if it’s unpopular. She accepts an offer for rush pref from the Lambda Sig’s and turns down Omega Chi, a choice her sisters support by a narrow vote. All of these things lead up to the end of the episode where the pledges from the show’s various frats and sororities are snatched from their beds in the middle of the night for the beginning of Hell Week, which just happens to coincide with the season finale, amazing how that happens. So until then…….
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