NBC would like last night to repeat over and over, a la Groundhog Day; FOX wishes it never happened.
NBC: With a 4.1 rating, REVOLUTION opened big. V big. The Bionic Woman big. Wait, those were fantasy adventures that had huge starts, then quickly petered out into flops? Shut up, observes NBC. The truth is that we’ll know more after a few episodes, but no question that Revolution did a great job of holding its THE VOICE lead-in–and Voice itself performed beautifully, at 4.6 scoring its biggest number since last spring. Of course, ABC and CBS both aired atypical competition last night, so… we’ll see.
FOX: We may not know for sure if the season has its first hit, but it’s very clear that the Nielsen gods have delivered the first flop: MOB DOCTOR interested absolutely no one, cratering from the start with a 1.5 that showed no potential at all. The network has limited pieces to play with in terms of making quick changes to the Monday line-up, with The Following unavailable until midseason. Touch (currently scheduled for Fridays) is the obvious, if unexciting, possibility for the slot. At 8PM, Bones performed in line with its Monday performance last spring at a 2.3.
ABC: The COUNTRYS NIGHT TO ROCK special, which the network carries as part of its CMA deal, did a 1.7, matching last year’s installment.
CBS: One last Monday of reruns, highlighted by 1.6 for a repeat of last season’s 1-hour 2 BROKE GIRLS season finale.
CW: The 8PM hour of THE LA COMPLEX (the network is airing the show in 2-hour chunks to burn it off before the new season starts) unaccountably did quite well (in context) at 0.4, but the extra hour at 9PM slumped to 0.2.
Tonight NBC will continue to try and get a leap on Tuesdays by airing its regular season schedule (using up 3d episodes of GO ON and THE NEW NORMAL), against the finale of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE on FOX. ABC, under the 20/20 rubric, airs a “Best Shows on Television” special. Meanwhile on cable, USA has the season finales of WHITE COLLAR and COVERT AFFAIRS.
About the Author
