The Weekly Pulse: TV's Second Wife

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I have a lot to talk about this week. Basically, just random thoughts I have. And I had actually thought about talking about all of them in detail later, but one of them stood out above the rest this week and I will talk about that later. But first..the other stuff…

The Winter Olympics SUCK this year! Now I watched very little of it, so I’m not talking about the actual event. I’m talking about how the ratings for the Olympics SUCK this year! Now they are doing well enough for NBC to win most nights each week. But ABC and FOX have actually been able to beat NBC, with its Olympic coverage, on some nights. That hasn’t happened since 1988! The Olympics usually DOMINATE and guarantee a win for NBC EVERY night, but not this time. In fact this Winter Olympics is down 53% from the Summer Olympics in 2004 and is down 64% from the last Winter Olympics in 2002! That won’t help NBC much in the overall picture. It’s a quick fix and nothing else this year.

But what about ‘Grey’s Anatomy’?! I told you it would happen. It was one of the shows that led ABC to a victory over NBC and the Olympics. Not only that but this week’s episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actually did better in the ratings than ‘Desperate Housewives’as well. That has NEVER happened before. Yeah..many people watched the show after the ‘Super Bowl’ last week and this week was the conclusion of that episode. But the fact is that ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ beat the show that leads into it! Usually..you put your stronger shows in front and place newer shows behind to get people to watch. That has worked wonders for ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and maybe now people will realize how great a show this is. A LOT better than ‘Desperate Housewives’!

Have I mentioned how great a show ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is?! Yeah..it is. It’s not your everyday show about love and relationships. It looks at love from three different sides..committed, wanting to commit, and wanting to NEVER commit. Ted wants a girlfriend and a mother to his children. Marshall and Lily are engaged and soon to be married. And Barney is Barney. He wants to bed as many women as possible. And they are all friends. The critics like it and a lot of people watch it, so I hope it sticks around for awhile. It should.

Now some may say the success of the show comes from its timeslot. Good point. And that is just what I will talk about later along with some sad news. But first..lets get to the week that was at IPTV!

Seinfeld Quote of the Week

“But I don’t trust this guy, I think he regifted and then he degifted and now he’s using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp!”Jerry

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Columns a.k.a. We’re Rolling Now!!

Mathan Erhardt returns for his latest column. He comments on ‘Lost’, ’24’, ‘Smallville’, ‘The Shield’, ‘Hustle’, ‘Boston Legal’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘Love Monkey’, ‘Scrubs’, ‘The Office’, ‘My Name is Earl’, and ‘Homicide: Life on the Streets’. He also tries to answer the question..”which TV show would you rather be stuck on..’Lost’ or ‘Prison Break’? It is the final linkage of the J.A.M. crew for Mathan as well! What a return!

Sarah Quigley talks about ‘The Bachelor’ as it begins to wind down! She breaks down the final three! Check it out!

Romo FINALLY gets around to posting up the complete IP TV Feature from last month, which was the “Top Ten TV Shows of 2005”! See what I, along with other writers, picked! Let the bashing begin!

Matt Basilo has got a job! But he still finds time to do a column from work? Hmmm..doesn’t seem to add up, but maybe he has a lot of “down” time at his new job. Anyways he talks about ‘Lost’, ’24’, ‘Survivor’, and ‘The O.C.’. And has found an error in ‘7th Heaven’! That’s all he has got as he has to get back to work now!

Dora Malone talks about talking and ‘Survivor’. Somehow they go together. How do they go together? You’ll have to read Dora’s column to find out. You can also check out other random ‘Survivor’ thoughts from her as well!

Farah Syed loves you all. She talks about love and television. How do they go together? Well..wait..I already did that. Basically, she tells you how love on TV can be done right and how it can be done wrong. Now she would LOVE for you to read it for yourself, though. So get to it!

Patrick Gilchriest discusses the way some players play the game of ‘Survivor’ and how wrong they are in their strategy! He also has his standouts of the last episode and a few predictions for this week’s episode!

Kevin Wong breaks down how you can survive the semifinal round of ‘American Idol’ and get to the finals! He also comments on ‘Survivor’ and tells you what else he watched this week. That’s about it, but be sure to sing while you read it!

Recaps a.k.a. Back to Normal!!

John Duran has the latest, for him, episode of ‘Lost’ along with some new ‘Desperate Housewives’ as well!

Matt Basilo doubles up this week with his review of the past two episodes of ‘Smallville’. Not the usual recaps, but good enough!

Matthew Romanada and Rob Purchase team up to recap the newest ’24’ episode again!

I continue my non-stop coverage of the ‘Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet II! No breaks for me from this show unlike ‘The O.C.’ as it is off for a month!

Craig Russell loves the ‘Gilmore Girls’! It’s his #2 show of 2005 as mentioned earlier if you clicked on that link! So check out the newest episode!

Bob Reiss jumps on board the TV train to recap ‘Survivor’!

Trevor MacKay has your ‘Invasion’ needs covered! It looks to be your last new episode for a few weeks..so enjoy!

This week we had 3 DVD reviews!

Sara Reller does her first review for the entertainment side of InsidePulse. She reviews Wildfire – Season One! Check her out!

ML Kennedy reviews Titus – Season Three! You know what to do!

Robert Sutton has the second season of the Adventures of Superman! See above!

Celebrities a.k.a. Eliza and That OTHER Guy!!

Murtz and former ‘Survivor’, Eliza, return with their thoughts on episode #3 of ‘Survivor’. By the way, Murtz’s crystal ball is all fogged up!

The Weekly Pulse Weekly Poll

Last week..I asked the question…”what do you think of The Olympics?” And here are the results:

I LOVE both versions of The Olympics! – 1
I ONLY like the Winter Olympics! – 0
I ONLY like the Summer Olympics! – 1
I HATE both versions of the Olympics – 3
Olympics? Never heard of them! – 0

It’s pretty clear here. Not a lot of votes and for those who did vote, you HATE the Olympics. And seeing the lack of votes..I can only come to one conclusion. You just don’t care about the Olympics enough to vote or you hate the Olympics, except for that one person who loves them. I talked about the ratings for this Olympics in the beginning and this really goes right along with that. The ratings are down this year and I think there is just not enough interest in them this year. That is all.

Now for this week’s question. Lets talk about timeslots and how they affect TV shows. For more on that, keep reading. But first here is this week’s question..“how much do you think a show’s timeslot affects how successful a show is?” Click on the link and VOTE! Remember..VOTE OR DIE!

What Did My TiVo Record This Week?

Friday

– ‘Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels’

– ‘ComicView’

– ‘Late Show With David Letterman’

Saturday

– ‘Wild & Out’

– ‘MTV’s The Shop’

– ’30-Minute Meals’

Sunday

– ’30-Minute Meals’

– ‘2006 NFL Pro Bowl Skills Competition’

– ‘2006 AFC/NFC NFL Pro Bowl’ (Last NFL game until September!)

– ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Monday

– ‘Parental Control’

– ‘Date My Mom’

– ‘Room Raiders’

– ‘Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet II’

– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’

Tuesday

– ‘Secret Life Of…’ (Pizza!)

– ‘American Idol’

– ‘ComicView’

– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’

Wednesday

– ‘Made’

– ‘$40-a-Day’

– ‘American Idol’

– ‘Beauty and the Geek 2’

– ‘Ham on the Street’

– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’

Thursday

– ‘Fat Camp’ (MTV Documentary!)

– ‘High-School Basketball’ (2005 Powerade Jam Fest on ESPN!)

– ‘Everybody Hates Chris’

– ‘Survivor’ (Caught second-half since no ‘Four Kings’!)

– ‘Beauty and the Geek 2’ (NEW Episode on the right day since ‘The O.C.’ is off!)

– ‘Wild & Out’ (NEW Episode!)

– ‘MTV’s The Shop’ (NEW Episode!)

– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’

Time to Talk a.k.a. Sad News and Timeslots!!

I don’t know if you heard the news, but CBS has pulled ‘Love Monkey’ from its schedule. Never heard of the show? Well it has only had three episodes so far, but it starred Tom Cavanagh from ‘Ed’ along with Jason Priestley, Judy Greer, and Larenz Tate. Critics gave it positive reviews and in fact, I talked about it earlier this year. I took at look at some of new shows coming out and asked everyone which one you had the most interest in. It was a landslide victory for ‘Love Monkey’. Most people were looking forward to it. So why did it get pulled? The ratings for the show were not that great. They didn’t compete with the other networks.

That brings up the question..how much does a show’s timeslot affect a show’s success? ‘Love Monkey’ went head-to-head with ‘Law & Order: SVU’ for NBC and ‘Boston Legal’ for ABC. Both shows had already established a strong audience and that clearly had an affect on the audience for ‘Love Monkey’. It was always third behind the other shows. But the show seemed good to me. It had potential.

It’s officially “on hiatus”, but CBS has no plans for its return yet. That’s a shame, because I think it never got a fair chance. Take a look at another show that came out around the same time as ‘Love Monkey’. I’m looking at you Jenna Elfman and your ‘Courting Alex’ show! No one was looking forward to that show, but yet its ratings have been strong. Strong enough for CBS to keep it around and move it to a new night. But why is the show successful? I have never seen the show nor do I want to, but it all has to do with its timeslot! ‘Courting Alex’ got the 9:30 Monday timeslot behind ‘Two and a Half Men’ on CBS. That spot has churned out nothing but success. It did it with ‘Courting Alex’ this spring and it did it with ‘Out of Practice’ back in the Fall. Those two shows are now moving to Wednesday to replace other struggling shows in the ratings. But these two shows have gained an audience because of it’s timeslot. The same can be said of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ as well. It is part of the CBS Monday Night Lineup. It follows the ‘King of Queens’ and is right before ‘Two and a Half Men’. People watch those two shows and keep on watching any show that is between them or after them. CBS knows this as it puts a third new series in that same slot in March. ‘The New Adventures of Old Christine’ starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus of ‘Seinfeld’ will debut in the same slot in March.

I talked about it earlier with ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ as well. ABC put it behind ‘Desperate Housewives’ last Spring. DH was a successful show for ABC. It got a HUGE rating for the network, so ABC was smart to put it behind DH. Now what has happened. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ has found an audience now and it will soon be beating ‘Desperate Housewives’ every week in the ratings. Just a matter of time.

I can list other examples. But you can’t deny that the timeslot of a show has some say in how successful the show is..at least at first. You can move shows around to different nights and it could still have the same rating, but it needs to get a good start out of the gates. If it slips and falls from the beginning, it’s hard for the show to get back up and continue the race.

Once a show has an audience, they are likely to follow that show anywhere. But it needs a fair chance to build an audience. Too bad ‘Love Monkey’ got a bad break in its timeslot. Oh..I hear the cynics out there. They say that if a show is good, people will watch it. Right..but if that show is against other great shows that people already watch, it’s hard to get people to make the switch. I do it all the time. I have to make a choice. ‘The O.C.’ has hooked me in and I chose to watch it over ‘My Name is Earl’ and ‘The Office’. I feel like both of those are great shows and I like them both, but ‘The O.C.’ will always come before them, because it hooked me in first. It got my attention first. I’m a part of their audience first.

So I hope that ‘Love Monkey’ gets a new timeslot. It’s an hour show and that may hurt it, but I feel it deserves another chance in a better timeslot. There are plenty out there to choose from. Meanwhile, ‘The Amazing Race’ returns to the timeslot that ‘Love Monkey’ had. That show is good enough and different enough to probably compete with NBC and ABC. But people know that it airs on Tuesday nights. That show has an audience already. They’ll come back. ‘Love Monkey’ needs the same chance as ‘How I Met Your Mother’. If it fails again in a non-competitive timeslot, then so be it. The show sucked then! But see what happens first before throwing it totally in the trash can!

That’s all I got this week. Any comments, questions, or suggestions are always welcome.

“Life Ain’t Always Beautiful, but It’s a Beautiful Ride!”

And as always remember…“You Can’t Fight Fate!”. See you next week!

I'm not embarrassed to say that my favorite television show of all-time is The O.C. I live by the motto "you can't fight fate!" More importantly, I watch WAY too much television, but I do so for the benefit of everyone reading this now. So to my mom and my wife, I say thanks for reading! To everyone else that might stumble across this, remember TiVo should be your best friend!