In the early, always subject to change (especially when there is a live event) metered market numbers, ABC led the night on the strength of Dancing with the Stars with a 12.5/18 (household rating/share). Berman notes that the World Series game garnered a 9.4/14 between 8:30pm-11pm. But there was a rain delay the latter part of that time period and then the game was suspended. It will resume tonight, weather permitting at 8:30pmish on Fox with Philadelphia batting in the bottom of the sixth inning (translation: no House or Fringe tonight if the weather in Philly is OK).
Mr. Berman labeled one of my fave's Chuck, a loser with a 4.2/6 but he is comparing how the show did last year (and the decreases year over year our unfortunate). But last week it also had a 4.2/6 and has been inching towards renewal in our Cancel/Renew Index. Given that a.) last night's episode might have been the worst of the entire series (I liked the ending though) and b.) that My Own Worst Enemy has sunk from a 5.2/8 for its premiere to a 3.7/6 last night, and c.) that the show got a full season order and d.) it's NBC, I am not worried about Chuck being canceled anytime soon. Though come April or so, I will worry about it being renewed. But, CBS decided to run repeats against the World Series and the repeats of The Big Bang Theory (5.3/8) and How I Met Your Mother (4.9/7) fared better than Chuck. Yet, NBC programming "guru" Ben Silverman is still out there talking trash!
Don't even get started on Heroes (which once a hit, i now still a demo success but only pulled a 5.0/8 at 9pm) -- I can only be mad at myself here though -- for still watching it.
Gossip Girl (2.3/3) and One Tree Hill (2.2/3) were more or less on par last week, but the devil is in the 18-34 female details, which we won't see until CW issues a press release.
You can read the full metered market report via Marc Berman.
Metered Market Overnight Ratings: This is normally the first available ratings information, and is based on the electronic measurement service that Nielsen provides in 56 of the nation's largest markets. In each market a sample of homes is selected to represent that individual market. Often, networks or syndicators provide metered market information as an early indicator of a program's performance. In aggregate, the 56 metered markets represent 79,890,610 homes, or 70% of all U.S. TV households. Preliminary metered market data are available as early as 8:00AM (ET). Final metered market information, reflecting line-up changes, pre-emptions and runovers, are normally available by 3:30PM (ET).
Wost Chuck episode of the entire series? Not the one I saw. In fact, I’ll put in the top 2 (along with last week’s).
I agree. I loved that episode of Chuck last night. Sure, it didn’t have a ton of “relationship” stuff, but it was pretty creative how they connected saving the world with beating a video game. The whole premise of the show is crazy, and it is supposed to be over-the-top. And that is why it works so well. I love the characters, love its vibe…I just hope more people get on board. It really is one of the most purely entertaining shows out there.
Even CBS run comedy repeats, they are better than NBC new ones.
Still a little unhappy about repeat, why CBS was afraid of baseball game.
Heroes…is done, it’s went too far. Fallen heroes, indeed.
And in a word, I’m unhappy about not having high quality TV shows these days.
Brandon & Gary: different strokes for different folks…
last week’s episode was up there for me, but last night’s was not. Plusses: the way it ended and the introudction of the Buy More corporate efficiency expert. But the overall story didn’t do it for me.
Disclaimers: I’m old, and this show is targeted to people under 35 — and I’m definitely older than 35! This means I played the original Missle Command regularly, both in the arcade and on the Atari 2600. It still didn’t do it for me!
heroes isnt done. what it needs to do is move nights. Mondays are WAY too competitive. I really like this season so far and I have no idea why its getting bashed for this season when last season was the one the needed the bashing the most. Its still NBC’s second highest rated show this season (behind the office) so they arent going to cancel it
I’m under 35 and this episode definitely didn’t do it for me. (Yes, I am female, but I do also like video games.) I was thinking the whole time while watching it “I love Chuck, but this episode just isn’t nearly as good as last week’s” (which was definitely up there among my favorites- Nicole Ritchie pleasantly surprised me and I loved Casey’s change in covers – the DJ cover was great!) Plusses for me also were the ending and Tony Hale.
I gave up on Chuck a long time ago (I can’t stand Sarah) but my friends said last night was a great episode.
Yeah, you’re way off on the Chuck hate. My friends and I loved last night’s episode, unlike Heroes, which has become laughable and like Prison Break I’m not sure why I continue to watch, although Prison Break has improved this season.
Justin, I watched it, and didn’t love it. I can’t be way off in speaking for myself
I do not hate Chuck! I get that many people really liked the episode and that some (Jennifer and I) did not…
I was kinda distracted during the Chuck episode and was not paying all that close of attention so cannot really jump into the quality of the episode. I have been and still am a Heroes fan and think so far this season has been pretty entertaining. As entertaining as the first? Probably not, but with a premise like this show has, I think it would be tough recapture that original vibe. All in all I will still watch Heroes each week, and I know for a fact a few friends of mine who do not watch live TV (they DVR everything then watch them without commercials) are pretty into it as well. I have also been hoping that NBC releases some kinda numbers on how many webstreams they are getting, now that the full episodes are available online this year.
Heroes is more entertaining this season, but it was killed by the 2nd season. People that normally wouldn’t watch Heroes gave up on it.
Robert, do you think Heroes’ problem is the show, with all its plots and new characters is getting conveluted? We’ve been discussing this on blogs (some, like me, aren’t nearly as into Heroes as we were) and I’m beginning to think they killed the good formula they had by muddying the waters with all these new plot routs and tie-ins. Then again, nothing can stay hot forever. Last night’s episode didn’t do it for me in Heroes. Too many cliche’s in the dialog, and Daddy petrelli isn’t impressing me like I thought he would. Only think keeping me DVRing this show is Sylar’s character development.
And no new Fringe tonight is VERY no bueno! Baseball or not, long gaps are going to hurt this show, and its become the only TV crack I have this season!
Mel, for me personally it’s probably the changes in all characters (save perhaps Hiro) that annoy me. You have multiple characters where they’ve tried to pull “they’r bad, no wait, they’re good, no wait…” and “they’re good, no wait, they’re bad, no…wait!” Eh. Plus, I’m supposed to buy Sylar getting beat down by Mohinder?! C’mon. And the whole Nathan Petrelli thing…eh.
The Atari/Nerd Herd pecking order, Sarah as the Nerd Herder(!), the line about the Zune and the iPod, the ending on the patio…come on, Robert, admit it, even a bad Chuck episode can’t actually “stink”.
Ahaha, I completely forgot about the Zune dig (no, c’mon, I’ll go get my iPod!). I wonder how much Apple paid for that
I did not forget about the sexy nerd herd attire, but she always looks gorgeous no matter what they do to her.
Ok, Ok, it didn’t stink!
Hee! True that on the Sylar/Mohinder beat down, it was a total WTF moment for me. And I think a lot of us are tired of all the “pick a side, any side. No, you already chose a side, you can’t change…” stuff going on. So, yeah, I agree with you on all that.
Personally, I think they were all taken over by pod people in Season 2.
And Chuck wasn’t spectacular last night either, to me. Hm. Seems a little early in the season to have the shows cranking out episodes made of “meh.” Guess we’ll see the proof in the pudding come November Sweeps. There is a sweeps in Nov…right? I know there is one in the spring….
I know NBC (or more specifically Silverman) is taking a lot of flak for its poor ratings and whatnot, but creatively speaking, I can’t really blame them since I feel like they have some good shows. It seems like we’re in a phase of reality shows and bruckheimer-by-the-numbers procedurals and everything else is fighting for table scraps in ratings. Chuck is a quality show – although it might lean more geek-ish so it turns off some common viewers. I personally think Life is excellent, maybe rescuing it from Friday purgatory will save it because it seems like a show mainstream enough to get good ratings. My Own Worst Enemy isn’t bad either, but it’s in a brutal time slot with Boston Legal taking all the old viewers while CSI:Miami takes everyone else. Knight Rider is simple escapist dumb fun that delivers young viewers, nothing wrong with that.
Anyway, the point is that it seems like anyone who tries to step out of that reality plus bruckheimer-like procedural formula gets stomped on in ratings. CBS is pretty much running those exclusively (and adding a couple more this season) and doing extremely well. The other networks of course have their star performers – DH, Grey’s, Office, House, SVU, etc. However, it really looks like diversifying your lineup really isn’t the way to go despite quality programming (TSCC, Life on Mars, PD to name a few).
Mel, for what it’s worth my opinion is if you *have* “meh” episodes in the can already, I can see wanting to use them up against the World Series in October rather than November sweeps.
Obviously you Jennifer and I are in the minority on our opinion of Chuck last night, even if it seems more like a 50-50 split to me!
Watched Chuck for the first time last night and loved it. Now, I’m sad that it is on against TSCC.
For some reason though, I felt that the plot line was familiar from somewhere. Any ideas?
The problem with Chuck, as I see it, is that the writers hamstrung themselves by tying Chuck down geographically. Basically, Chuck can never venture more than 25 miles away from “Buy More,” and at least 10 minutes of the show must be shot in the store. There are only so many plots you can create with those constraints before it really gets absurd. I think we saw an example of that in yesterday’s episode.