Ace Young, American Idol
(I'm simply cutting-n-pasting yesterday's ratings blurb, updating where needed.) Nearly 31.5 million total viewers tuned in for Wednesday night's "men second" round of American Idol semifinalists, more than doubling the first two hours of NBC's prime-time Olympics coverage, which averaged 14.8 mil viewers. (On a side note, Paula looked sssmokin'.) However, once Ryan reminded us of the text-voting process a 146th and final time and Idol had bowed out for the night, the Winter Games surged in the 10 o'clock hour with 16.9 million viewers. Tonight, it's the results show versus women's parallel giant-slalom snowboarding. And Survivor. And Dancing with the Stars. And a Love, Inc. repeat.
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Misty Giles, Survivor: Panama
Misty Giles' hesitation to reveal her occupation on Survivor: Panama — Exile Island (Thursdays at 8 pm/ET) just may have contributed to her ouster last week, when the La Mina men surmised that her smarts offered an unfair advantage. TVGuide.com spoke with the self-described "tomboy in high heels" about hanging with the boys, doling out those, ahem, strategic massages, and dining on the tribal delicacy of snail soup. TVGuide.com: What have the reactions been like since your elimination on last week's show?Misty Giles: My friends were like, "I know how competitive you are. You have to have won," and all I could say was, "Watch the show." Everyone's pretty bummed and shocked.
TVGuide.com: L
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Survivor: Panama — Exile Island First off, was it Exile Island or Opposite Island last night? Fire dancer Courtney had trouble with the fire, La Mina actually lost a challenge, and Shane, of all people, called other players "lunatic" and "neurotic." Then he himself promptly earned both descriptions tenfold by shouting about the "Shane Thinking Seat." Yeah, right, that will be getting a lot of use. One-man army Terry was a champ during the reward challenge and was charitable to his tribe when he called it a "team effort." Sure, if you spell "team" t-e-r-r-y. Poor Bruce barely got to know his tribe before once again being shuffled off to Exile Island, but given the juvenile arguments at Casaya, he was probably better off. Enough with the Bickersons. Over at La Mina, the tribe enjoyed "Nemo," and Sally said it
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Question: What brain-dead person at CBS slotted The Amazing Race in a 10 pm/ET slot? It's one of the few obvious family shows. Seems like The Unit, at 9 pm/ET, and Race should be flipped, at the very least.
Answer: Let this be another reminder that our idea of logic and the networks' idea of logic are two very different things. In the best of all TV worlds, CBS would realize that Amazing Race is a very family-friendly show and would program it early in the evening, like Survivor on Thursdays. But for CBS, the point is to maximize viewership, not to make life easier for the rest of us, and the strategy here is that the military-themed The Unit is seen as a good fit with the breakout hit NCIS, and on the occasions that CBS has run Race at the later hour of 10 pm/ET, it has performed well there in a very competitive time period. (You can't underestimate the importance of scheduling a strong show in the 10 pm hour, as a lead-in to local news.) So while I totally get your frustration, ther ...
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Last week's Dancing with the Stars beat Survivor: Panama — Exile Island in the Nielsen's, making it the first series since Friends' demise to outperform the reality juggernaut in a head-to-head contest. Dancing waltzed away with 20 million viewers, its highest numbers to date this season. Survivor only rustled up 19.2 mil.
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Elisabeth Hasselbeck, The View
Last week was an emotional roller-coaster for Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Just days after brother-in-law Matt Hasselbeck's Seattle Seahawks were deprived of a Super Bowl win, she and the other ladies of ABC's The View racked up 10 Daytime Emmy nods. Is this the year that they at last grab the gold for Outstanding Talk Show Host? Just minutes after the nominations were announced, TVGuide.com caught up with Hasselbeck, aka that sunny Survivor, to discuss the show's chances and to tackle a very hot topic — the questionable refereeing during that Super Bowl loss.
TVGuide.com: First of all, congratulations on The View's nominations [including best talk show]!Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Thank you. The show's been nominated right from the jump, so it's nice to know it's always been in the game. It's certainly deserved it every single year.
TVGuide.com: From where you're sitting, when
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Survivor: Panama — Exile Island Well, the idea of four separate tribes certainly didn't last long. I know it was just dumb luck that they happened to get the new team buffs, but it seems like Terry and Danielle will make it very far this season. Can't believe that Bruce was left stranded at the "schoolyard pick." Obviously, he hasn't demonstrated his ability to kick through a tree trunk for these people, otherwise he'd have been snapped right up. I laughed when Courtney chose Aras — their cosmic connection was clear last week. Flyboy Terry has marked Sally for death after her "Spear? Oops, what spear?" mishap. Nice knowing you, Sally! Poor Misty was literally covered with bites, so Jeff Probst was definitely not lying about the pesky fire ants on Exile Island. Speaking of pesky, Shane was working my las
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Jenna Lewis
For former reality stars, competing for acting gigs is a kill-or-be- killed scenario. Survivor: Borneo's Jenna Lewis is determined to come out on top, so she was thrilled to land the lead role in the reality spoof movie The Scorned and its accompanying behind-the-scenes unscripted show, Kill Reality (Mondays at 10pm/ET on E!). The mother of twin girls had a brief glimpse of unwanted notoriety when a sex tape from her honeymoon got distributed last year, but when TVGuide.com gave her a ring she seemed to have recovered quickly from that (and her marriage) and is moving on.
TVGuide.com: How did you get involved with this show?Jenna Lewis: I've actually been working with [Kill Reality's production company] Creative Light for about a year; I do two radio shows f
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Last week, Survivor: Vanuatu shook up the game by forcing both tribes to vote someone out. So although the Lopevi guys won the immunity challenge — and John K. earned individual immunity — they essentially lost. That was hammered home when the weaker dudes cut yet another strong player: Home Depot employee John Palyok. (Meanwhile, the Yasur girls ousted Mia.) Here, the 31-year-old studpuppy from sunny California tells TV Guide Online about his short stay.
TV Guide Online: You work at Home Depot.John Palyok: Yes, I bleed orange.
TVGO: Did your handy skills come in, well, handy on the island?John: As soon as I said Home Depot, everyone just assumed, "He's the engineer. He can start constructing things. Let him build the shelter, and he can start the fire and stuff like that." I was the fix-it-all person, which may or may not have hurt me.
TVGO: How'd you feel about the battle of the sexes
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He may have lost out on Survivor's $1 million booty — twice — but Colby Donaldson still has that winning smile to fall back on. In fact, the hunky Texan has parlayed those good looks into an acting career, recently landing a memorable guest stint on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the episode, the 29-year-old — playing himself — got into a heated debate with a Holocaust survivor about whose experience was worse. TV Guide Online caught up with Jerri Manthey's rival to chat about landing the plum gig, his acting aspirations and Hollywood's reality prejudice.
TVGO: How did you end up on Curb? Colby Donaldson: I went in and auditioned with a bunch of other guys and was lucky enough to get it. They originally had thrown the part out there as a fictitious character from Survivor. Once I got the job, we shot it and my name was Steve or Andy or something like that, and Larry called me up and said, "This is ridic
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