Let's start this week's roundup by blowing some Valentine's kisses to ABC's Wednesday night lineup. No tongue, and not on the mouth, because that would be rude! But also very funny, as evidenced on the night's standout comedies The Middle and Modern Family, in which Sue Heck freaks when her wrestler boyfriend Matt gets "international" with his tongue-wrestling and Claire Dunphy is seriously skeeved out by Greg Kinnear (a hoot as Phil's wealthy new client) as he plants kisses right on her mouth, while shirking an oblivious Phil's hugs. Turns out he kisses ...
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Those writing about the inexorably declining ratings of American Idol will have to stand down for at least a day as the amateur talent competition stayed even with last week in the industry-prized 18-to-49 demographic, according to preliminary Nielsen figures.
Now, we'll have to see if the cliff-hanger involving the hopeful who fainted and fell off the stage gooses the ratings for Fox. (By comparison, fair or not, NBC's The Voice grabbed 17.69 million viewers with a 6.6 demo rating Monday night on its first regularly scheduled airing.)
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But did Downton Abbey cover the spread? The PBS series finished second to Super Bowl XLVI among TV viewers.
The Emmy-winning program attracted 4 million viewers at 9 o'clock Sunday, outpacing reruns of CBS' CSI Miami (3.13 million), Fox's animated tandem of Family Guy (2.41 million) and American Dad! (2.29 million) and ABC's The Middle (1.76 million) as the broadcast networks virtually forfeited the night. Those were paltry numbers for those shows, while Downton Abbey wasn't off by much (its first three episode averaged 4.3 million and the fourth 4.8 million before Sunday's 4 million).
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One of the better things about a good episode of NBC's stalwart Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is that you can rarely tell where it's headed. Is tonight's cameo-heavy hour (10/9c) the latest condemnation of reality TV's sordid excesses? Sure looks that way at the start, as we encounter an especially slimy Michael McKean (relishing his repulsiveness) as the predatory producer of a crap-tastic train wreck titled Showgirls, featuring young hopefuls who would do "whatever it takes" to land the starring role in a Broadway musical. (No small irony this is airing the week of the all-important-to-NBC Smash premiere, where such things could never happen!) As he liquors up a nervous contestant for her "audition," he leers for her to "seduce the audience. Let them know you want this." Doesn't take a genius to know where this is going.
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There may be sitcoms that are flashier, edgier or more ironic than The Middle, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any that are funnier. Since premiering in 2009, ABC's hit comedy about the Hecks, a working-class Midwestern family of misfits, has proven that it doesn't take a right- or left-coast sensibility to produce laughter — thanks in no small part to the performances of Charlie McDermott (Axl), 21, Eden Sher (Sue), 20, and Atticus Shaffer (Brick), 13. TV Guide Magazine played hooky with the trio for an afternoon of mini-golf at Castle Park in Sherman Oaks to find out if they're equally entertaining off duty.
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