Comments on: Sunday Ratings: Big Brother Slips; Meteor Tops Merlin; And Fox Wins The Night

By: anthony

anthony — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:53:48 +0000

Its funny to read the numerous comments on how “Merlin” is such a great family show, and that you typically hear within the same breathe by family groups and parent groups that there is “never anything family related on tv”. But now there is (Merlin) and the ratings are showing low to average numbers. This was the same problem with shows like “Joan of Arcadia” and “American Dreams” Good wholesome shows that got canceled because ratings were not there.

By: shelly

shelly — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:15:22 +0000

LMAO, JRW, I think you mean Bradley James, not Bradley Cooper.

Bradley Cooper=guy who was in Alias, Kitchen Confidential, Wedding Crashers, Hangover, and supposedly Aniston’s new boyfriend (but I digress).

By: JRW

JRW — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:09:19 +0000

Why do you keep dumping on “Merlin”? NBC hasn’t done a thing with it, even though it has moved the network from fourth to (on average) second place in the night and has held consistently well. It gets more viewers than other genre/fantasy shows on basic cable (such as “Clone Wars” and “Battlestar Galactica,” when that was on) and has clearly established an audience. Yet NBC does NOTHING to promote it.

“Merlin” is a fun and entertaining series with great production values. It’s every bit as compelling to me as a “Harry Potter” movie.

If NBC actually promoted it, got its actors out there to do publicity, positioned Bradley Cooper and Colin Morgan as new stars, and put some EFFORT into this, maybe “Merlin” would do as well in the U.S. as it has done everywhere else in the world!

By: Bad Robot !

Bad Robot ! — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:30:11 +0000

Valentine? Does it really matter if its a repeat or not? It died of heart failure several months ago. Its now just a zombie show used by CW to avoid putting up a test pattern – or more Jericho.

By: tom

tom — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:26:21 +0000

True Blood series-high 3.9 million viewers. Hung, 3.6 million viewers, Entourage 3.4 million viewers

By: Gavin

Gavin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:00:05 +0000

It’s a shame you guys haven’t taken to Merlin. It’s a great show and builds towards a great finale, setting the way for darker season 2 which will explore a certain characters betrayal of the royal family (I wont spoil it, but it is part of the folklore). It is a family show, and would work better at a time when all the family can watch. I just hope you get to watch season 2 over there, we’re getting it soon in the UK.

By: shelly

shelly — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:01:50 +0000

Jesse, the point of Merlin is to make an entertaining series, not teach accurate Arthurian folklore. It’s like I’ve said from day one – just let loose and enjoy the show and you’ll like it, which is why it’s so successful abroad. If you keep worrying about how wrong it all is and picking it apart, you won’t like it. Were Sam Raimi’s extremely successful series Hercules TLJ and Xena: Warrior Princess all made exactly according to Greek myths? Heck no. But people still loved them because they were fun to watch.

As for Meteor, how many more ridiculous Armageddon rip off movies do we need? Someone at Hollywood has been watching way too many Roland Emmerich films.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:53:05 +0000

Don, was traveling today. It’s corrected now, and you may sleep in peace.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:38:55 +0000

Valentine was new. How come it never gets corrected?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:45:07 +0000

If I remember right, Valentine was actually new on the CW last night and will be for the next week as well and new episodes of Easy Money for the next four weeks after to burn off all the episodes from MRC.

I notice you put repeat the past two Sundays. Was I misinformed?

By: rob

rob — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:33:46 +0000

RJ, ur right! everytime i watch something on CBS they are promoting their fall shows and ABC all i seen was Flash Forward, Modern Family, and Cougar Town. They definitely have to do more promoting if they want their shows to do good

By: Jesse

Jesse — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:56:08 +0000

Personally, I think Merlin would do FAR better if it jived with what most people know of Arthur-ian Legend It’s so far off base that it’s truly unsettling. It’s like reading a bad prequel to a good book.

By: US.

US. — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:10:34 +0000

Its a shame Merlin isn’t doin well i like it. Clearly fellow americans don’t like stuff based on british culture. Dang!

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:54:23 +0000

Merlin is a family show .. if they move it at all it would be to 7…
I assume.

By: RJ

RJ — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:44:35 +0000

“While watching CBS, during each show I see about 4-5 commercials promoting their new fall shows. While watching NBC I see about 1-2 commercials promoting their new shows. However, I have NOT seen one ABC commercial promoting a new fall show except the little 10 second Flash Forward commercial I have seen twice!”

Good point. Perhaps ABC is going to use Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to air all of their fall show ads. However, thats only one month of promotion. CBS is by far doing the best job.

By: RJ

RJ — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:42:37 +0000

“I think this is either the first or second CW Sunday Night Movie that has gotten close to or over a million viewers…YEEHAW!”

The CW Sunday Night Movie has been over 1 million viewers numerous times.

By: Master Moron

Master Moron — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:55:36 +0000

Well, I’m done with Merlin now that Big Brother is back, and based on the ratings it looks like everyone else felt the same way. How dumb is NBC? Why would they air Merlin opposite the one other show that’s airing new episodes? Why don’t they move Merlin to 9:00? Since everything else was in reruns I just watched Big Brother and shut off the TV afterwards.

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:53:47 +0000

Merlin isnt doing that bad for a summer show is it?

I think there is alot more on tv … better cable shows and more channels to watch.

Could be a culture thing too … its a british legend americans just not very interested in.

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:48:50 +0000

“There was absolutely nothing remotely redeeming about “Meteor.””

Marla Sokoloff? The other 99% of the movie was complete garbage. With a decent cast I’m shocked at how horrible it was. I was hoping Jacob Carter had a ship off-camera to escape from that mess.

By: So Cal

So Cal — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:31:27 +0000

I think this is either the first or second CW Sunday Night Movie that has gotten close to or over a million viewers…YEEHAW!

By: Chuck Anziulewicz

Chuck Anziulewicz — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:28:50 +0000

USA Today gave “Meteor” a pretty scathing 1-star review. So I thought to myself, “How bad could it possibly be?” Well, as it turns out, GLARINGLY bad. EMBARRASSINGLY bad. SO bad, in fact, that it made me downright ANGRY that one of the venerable “Big Three” broadcast networks would actually air it … and in this era of Reality TV, that’s really saying something.

There was absolutely nothing remotely redeeming about “Meteor.” The acting and direction were both about as awful as it gets. The special effects were cheap, and there was absolutely no attempt made at scientific accuracy. Bad enough for you? Well, how about that SCRIPT? According to USA Today, the screenwriter for “Meteor” was one Alex Greenfield, whose last major writing credit was for “WWF Smackdown,” if you can believe that. And BOY, did it show. The script for this film was so laughably, eye-rollingly BAD that for the first time in my life I felt geniunely ashamed of myself for tuning in to watch a TV program.

What could NBC possibly have been thinking in airing this? My guess is the only thing that mattered was the advertising revenue. Some corporate suit probably said, “It doesn’t matter if the program is bad. What only matters is that we make more money off it than we invested.” Are these the depths to which network television has sunk? If so, and especially if next Sunday’s conclusion to this execrable film draws similar ratings, I see absolutely NO hope for human civilization.

By: William

William — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:23:23 +0000

Its interesting to see MERLIN fail so terribly on NBC. In Australia, it is quite the hit for Channel 10…

By: Bad Robot !

Bad Robot ! — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:16:46 +0000

Forgot about Doc Brown, why doesnt he hop into his DeLorean time machine and use his flux capacitor to go back in time and warn himself that a 2 piece meteor will strike the Earth in 2009?

By: CP

CP — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:08:59 +0000

The fate of our world relies on Doc Brown and Costanza? We’re doomed.

By: Bad Robot !

Bad Robot ! — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:57:24 +0000

The 1979 version of Meteor with Sean Connery, Martin Landau, Henry Fonda and Karl Malden was cheesier and more entertaining. With this one, featuring George Costanza standing around Meteor HQ, babbling about nuclear weapons and trajectories, I kept expect Jerry, Elaine and Kramer to show up, with Jerry saying “Hey George, since we are all going to die anyway, let go down to Monk’s for a final meal. ”

The only good part was when that girl took a fire extinguisher and bashed in the skull of the Mexican rapist cop and then blew away the other deputy. That was totally hard core.