Crank up the surround sound. HBO's The Pacific premieres this Sunday and I'm really looking forward to it having just watched Band Of Brothers. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks reunited with HBO to take on the Pacific Theater of Word War 2 in another 10 part miniseries.
I've watched some of the previews and visually it's stunning. The reviews have been great so far, with a 90 rating on Metacritic as I write this. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, who used to refer people to our blog all the time for ratings info, but probably won't anymore (can't say I'd blame her, really), gave it four out of a possible four stars, and she's by not alone, half of the reviews on Metacritic so far gave it a perfect score.
Variety gave it the lowest score so far, with three out of five stars.
I'm interested to see how it does in the ratings, not that ratings are really what HBO is going after since it doesn't sell advertising. I'm interested to see how it compares with to Band of Brothers though. Eight and a half years ago the heavily promoted Band of Brothers premiere averaged nearly 10 million viewers.
But that was 2 days before 9/11, and being sensitive to the climate of the times, HBO stopped its marketing campaign. The second episode on 9/16/01 still averaged 7.3 million viewers and episodes 3-5 averaged around six million viewers, about as well as Six Feet Under was doing back then.
Though it's certainly a big budget production, and I'm expecting it to be as good as most of the reviews suggest, I'll be stunned if The Pacific pulls numbers like those. In 2001 hardly anyone had a DVR. There was no On Demand, and even if you had an HDTV, you couldn't watch HBO in HD.
Now DVRs are in more than one out of every three homes and around 2 out of 5 people have access to them. Between DVR and HBO On Demand and HBO On Demand in HD, it's just harder to corral those kinds of audiences for premiere telecasts. Darn near impossible, I'd guess. HBO doesn't generally release a lot of ratings info, but hopefully for this they'll produce cumulative ratings.
Though I don't think it will do nearly as well with the premiere telecasts, it won't surprise me if The Pacific does as well as Band of Brothers when DVR, On Demand and subsequent airings are factored in.
This just might end up being as good as or in some instances better than Band of Brothers. Well, the True Blood season 2 finale garnered 5 million for live viewership. But, ratings don't matter as much to HBO or Showtime. It will do well OnDemand.
It looks interesting..Robert what time is it there? You are not usually pubishing new stuff this early. Here it's 11AM
definitely looking forward to this
What will be interesting to see is what the DVD sales for The Pacific are compared to the DVD sales were for Band Of Brothers.
Dario, way too damn early in the morning to be posting. But I'm planning on slacking all day…
Hell I just watched the entire first season of The Wire on HBO. Did the same thing to catch up with the Sopranos before Season 6.
Definitely won't pull the same ratings. Here's another thing to add: the additional series on Showtime and Starz now. HBO actually has competition for miniseries and its shows. It's still the big dog among premium networks, but it's no longer the monopoly.
Still has the best TV in America though.
I suspect ratings won't be as great either. Most of the reviews point out that the European theatre was an old school war, full of places you've heard of, dealing with enemies that were culturally similar.
The Pacific, on the other hand, was every nightmare conflict since: largely guerrilla warfare in unknown territory against a decidedly different culture.
So I expect it to open big before declining rapidly (think about the number and popularity of European vs. Pacific shows on The History Channel), though total viewers through other means (repeats, DVRs, DVDs) will catch up in the end.
It depends, the Pacific theater was a different war. I'm not that interested especially since Eastwood's two movies and isn't the Military Channel and/or the History Channel doing the war in the Pacific too soon? I already feel inundated and it hasn't even started yet.
That's the first time a read about Six Feet Under ratings, I always wondered… I'm definetly going to watch it, loved Band Of Brothers and I just bought it in blu-ray
I think 5-7m but it wouldn't surprise me if it was higher, The Pacific is the sort of minseries that HBO and they have been on a roll lately with commissioning Boardwalk Empire and A Game of Thrones.
Is the series appropiate for a boy age 11. I am trying to make an informed decision. My son and I watched Band of Brothers and although violent, it was appropiate vilolence. I would like to know the extent of the violence, sex, and language.
I will definitely watch and I think it is important for my son to see what war is really about. Not the glorified “Medal of Honor” stuff but rather real people faced with a very difficult task..
Thanks
If you were able to sit through BoB together, I would imagine that the Pacific will be similar both in content and purpose. Hope this helps!
Jon, don't forget that HBO also has Treme coming up.
I will not be watching pacific because of Hanks. I am sick of movie stars putting our country down and then expecting us to out and watch their movies. No more for me, since you seem to hate this country which you have built your fortunes on; and hate capitalism, which you seem to have taken good advantage of to make your fortunes ( which in this country is your right), its time for me to do the same and just not go to movies and give my hard earned money to those with no respect to my country, I refuse to be used by hypocrits like Hanks and those of his ilk.
Given BoB DVD sales, I have to think that this premiere could top the premiere of the original miniseries. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think TAKING CHANCE proved earlier this year that there's an audience for thoughtful adult dramas related to war so I don't think subject matter will be an obstacle. If anything it will be a boon as every M18-34 has been talking up the premiere for months. Will be interesting to see what happens
Elouise, criticizing your country is considered patriotic. Dissent is the most patriotic thing a citizen can do. I don't criticize World War II because we needed to be there in order to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq are different. We didn't need to be in any of those countries. They didn't attack us and werent about to start any new wars. Afghanistan did not attack us on 911. Saudi Arabia attacked us. Osama Bin Laden is Saudi Arabian. But, did we attack Saudi Arabia? No? Why? Because the Saudi Royal family are friends with George Bush. Also, Saudi arabia owns the United States. They purchase our debt.
HBO is in better shape than NBC is in.
I hope it starts off with some excitement. BoB took a while to build up and get good.
When it first aired I stopped watching after 2 episodes.
I later watched it again when Spike or History ran it all day on Veterans day or another holiday and it got better as it went along.
I think it's important to start quickly.
People lose interest quickly with so many viewing choices on tap these days.
Well, there's a LOT of people who loved it; sons and daughters of those who were there. My ex-father-in-law was aboard LST 616, and served in both oceans; you can bet several homes will be watching, no matter what.
My brother and I watched the first one; it was done very well; as ugly as it was, no sugar-coating or trying to tell us taking back the planet from fascism was wrong. A fair treatment of the tale.
Our Dad entered Italy and made his way to Germany, bringing HUNDREDS of photos of the devastation; clearly we were tuned in for that one.
These are important stories; I can't tell you how much. Russia's not allowed to have heros from anywhere but the current administration…or they're killed. This makes for a people who don't believe in themselves….people unwilling to save the world again, should we need to.
No, I think you might be surprised- the advertising of this story shouldn't cost as much: they did such a bang-up job on the first one!
Well of course the ratings wont' be as good as Band of Brothers. BoB was airing right in the middle of 9/11, a time when patriotism was at an all time high. Real American heroes were what everyone needed, and BoB obliged.
It really wouldn't matter much even if it got abysmal ratings. It's a mini-series, not a recurring series. There's no danger of cancellation.
As for quality… While I do know how very competent these guys are, I don't expect it to be good as Band of Brothers, because Band of Brothers was damn near perfect. It could be half as good as BoB and still be magnificent.