My MJ Memorial Blog 31M People Watched.. WOW.. Robin Williams Self Destructs, Great American Road Trip Apparently Not So Great

Oh have I have neglected my blog as of late. I've been a little busy. Let's face it anyways, there isn't too much to write about. Summer TV has been kind of lagging a bit.

This is unbelievable, but according to Nielsen 31 M people watched the MJ Memorial. It was kind of hard to miss as it dominated just about all the major channels. What kind of amazes me more is that it was on in the middle of the day. Don't these people have jobs? Yeah, I know.. pot meet kettle. But I WAS working while I was watching. I'm lucky like that. I had commented on my Facebook that I don't ever remember, in my lifetime, such a memorial for a "celebrity" in either music or movies that had such an elaborate and public memorial with the acception of Presidents and of course Princess Diana and the Pope. In total 19 networks carried the memorial vs between 7 and 8 that carried the Presidents' , Princess Di and Pope funerals. However, that 31M number does fall short of Reagan (35M) and Princess Di (33M) viewers. But those are just the U.S numbers. BBC estimated that 1B people worldwide watched (they estimated 2.5B for Princess Di). In Germany , according to THR's live Feed, 20M or a 1/4 of the population watched it (obviously it was on during their evening viewing hours).

I did watch most of it. I honestly forgot it was on as I had the movie 'The Beach' with Leonardo DiCaprio playing as I was working and forgot the time. I missed the first 45 minutes, I believe. From what I watched, my favorite eulogy came from Brooke Shields. Watching her was like watching just a regular person talking about another regular person, if you know what I mean. It kind of gave you a glimpse of MJ as just a regular guy. Of course the most heart wrenching portion came at the end when his daughter spoke.

The MJ memorial also sparked a lot of debate amongst my Facebook friends about why we were paying so much attention on MJ. I can see their point. I mean there was never such a memorial for the likes of Elvis. I wonder if it is because we are just in a media obsessed era, or if MJ just had a much further reach than Elvis. I will say, however, that it is now getting ridiculous. While cooking and doing some other chores I happened to have the TV on ET and Inside Edition. Since the day he died that is ALL they have talked about on their shows. Every day they analyze and disect every minor detail of everything. It's actually bordering on obsessive and is kind of getting nauseating.

Well.. okay so enough already about MJ. I've said my little piece. It is really sad, however, but life goes on.. and so does TV.

I DVR'd Great American Road Trip but haven't watched it yet. Didn't do so well in the ratings. Big surprise. It seems not much is this summer season. That will all change, however, when the ultimate summer favorite 'Big Brother' returns. Very excited about that! 'Dating in the Dark' is coming soon and I will watch that to see just how ridiculous it gets and to laugh at it, of course.

This is pretty cool. One of my favorite comedians, Robin Williams, will be doing a solo stand up show for HBO this December called 'Weapons of Self Destruction'. Yeah! The man is hysterical! Can't wait!

Well all, I must go. I have a lot of DVR to watch including Saving Grace, Hawthorne, SYTYCD, America's Got Talent, The Cleaner ( I started watching and like it, so I've added it to my DVR season pass). I have to watch all of it before I leave on my trip Sunday , otherwise my DVR will fill up too fast and won't record.EEK! Fortunately for me my mom and I like most of the same shows and so we'll watch them together while I'm visiting. She too has two DVR's! Could our love for TV be genetic (and our obsession with the DVR for that matter)? Maybe. I should ask my brother ( a geneticist) to look for such a gene. Maybe he can get published with that study! I know that finding a cure for cancer and other genetic type disease is more important, but it would be interesting don't you think?

Jon & Kate Plus 8 Divorce is Sad, Royal Pains is #1 Watched Show Knocking Closer to #2

I don't watch Jon & Kate Plus 8. I tend to spend more time on the network shows and less time further down the dial, with exception of TNT and as of late USA and of course the HBO and Showtime series. I can't really comment or blog about them individually or as a couple, as I never observed them on their TV Show. But, apparently , the American public didn't really see a problem until photos of them separately outside of their reality TV show indicated there were issues.

I did capture a clip of the announcement of their separation and it made me sad. It made me sad for them and sad for their children. They started out so full of hope with dreams of this wonderful family. I so wish that while the cameras were capturing the "family bliss" that they captured the TRUE reality that obviously lurked in the background along with everything else. I know that wasn't the premise of the show, but it would have been an honest real look at the American family. Can you really call yourself a "reality" show when you actually HIDE your reality and give us a "faked" image of your family and your marriage? If I had been a watcher of the show and a fan, I would be upset that what you were putting out there was not really real or honest.

I did think it interesting that rather than having the kids move back and forth in and out of the home, that the parents will actually rotate , each spending time in the house when it is their time with the kids. I wonder if that is the first time anything like that has ever been done.

What I think would make an even BETTER reality series is if Jon & Kate really sought therapy for their marriage. Rather than file divorce, they live separate and work on trying to hammer through their issues with a neutral third party. I believe that every marriage is worth trying to salvage before coming to the ultimate decision of ending it. They wanted to be "real" for the camera, and show a REAL American family. Divorce is so much (and unfortunately so) part of the real American family these days that documenting it on TV is perhaps what the public would need to see. Even more so, we'd need to see how a marriage can or can't be saved through working on whatever issues they have with each other. Jon & Kate need to reconnect and find each other again to remember what they fell in love with in each other or at least try to. THAT to me would be interesting to watch along with the family dynamic.

Perhaps that would be to close to the cuff for them and way too personal, but it would be more real. If they still ended up divorced, then they divorce. If not, it could teach us all how to find each other again. I wonder how the show will work now and what the new title should be , should they continue the show as they say they will.

FYI a new episode is not scheduled till August 8th. It is also interesting to note that the show that aired last night had the highest ratings for the series ever at 10.5M viewers. But, prior to this weeks show it had lost 1.3M viewers knocking it off the top 20 List.

In other cable TV News, the Closer shrunk by half a million viewers from it's opening the week before and down to the #2 spot on the Cable's most watched series list. Royal Pains is now #1 having grown by 1M viewers over the last week. USA is having a hot summer I'd say.

I did watch Hawthorne again with my husband. While I initially liked it, I think it's okay. It needs to grow more on me and hopefully it will. It's not GREAT it's okay, as it is not full of as much depth as say shows like Saving Grace is or even the Closer. I will keep watching and hopefully the second episode will improve upon the first.

'True Blood' Hits Record, 'I'm A Celebrity' Commentary, TNT's 'Hawthorne, '24' Adds New Cast Member , CW Premiere Dates & More

I have been watching 'I'm a Celebrity' although not with any regularity. It's more like when I have nothing else to watch I'll watch it. I am interested in how it all ends, so that is what is keeping me slightly interested. The viewing public is not really having a love affair with the show either, as it is only pulling in 4.7M viewers on average (as of last showing). Not so great.

While I was watching 'Celebrity' last night I kept going back to my first week impression of how the camp looked like it was on a sound stage a lot of the time. I couldn't help but note some very distinct differences between 'Survivor' and 'Celebrity' particularly when they showed the "ninjas", as Patty called them, coming into camp in the middle of the night (3am actually) to wrangle a snake that had wandered into the campsite. Captions for the crew read "On-site security". I wondered to myself, do the 'Survivor' camp members have on site security to wrangle wild and potentially poisonous animals off in the middle the night? Because they never do show such a thing. And why show such a thing? Are you trying to convince us that you are really in the jungle or that our "celebrities" are facing dangers and conditions well beyond what they would ever experience in their celebrity life? Kind of a little over dramatization. Trying too hard perhaps? It just seemed very "campy", no pun intended. There is just something about this entire show that really lacks in how genuine it is. 'Survivor' feels genuine. This show just doesn't. Even if they are in the jungle, I wonder how much they are really roughing it. Even with the food challenges, the losers still get rice and beans. The contestants on 'Survivor' get nilch if they can't fend for themselves. Not that this needs to be like 'Survivor' exactly, but when you have a show like 'Survivor' and you put a bunch of celebrities into camp with far more luxuries than the 'Survivor' contestants could ever dream of, it's just lackluster. It's like the cheapened version of an excellent show. I think that is one of the reasons the American public is just not buying it. It's lame in comparison.

Last night I DVR'd and then watched Hawthorne on TNT. I liked it. There is a lot there and it held my interest about exactly who Hawthorne is, what happened to her husband (why did her daughter say she let her dad die?). It opened well with solid ratings of 3.83M viewers. Looking good for Hawthorne. It was followed by the third season of Saving Grace, which I also watched and is one of my faves. Holly Hunter is a genious in that role. It retained 97% of the audience out of Hawthorne and it's average viewers last night was higher than it's second season overall average. Looks good for Saving Grace.


While I was watching 'Hawthorne' I couldn't help note the differences (and some of the similarities) between 'Hawthorn'e and 'Nurse Jackie'. Obvious differences are it's tone. 'Nurse Jackie' is a darker feel, more gritty (language and overall bluntness) than most medical series on TV. 'Hawthorne' is , of course lighter. But, then Showtime can take more liberties in their story telling than TNT can. One similarity is the student nurse that is obvious and present. In the fall we will be getting a third medical show that follows nurses with 'Mercy' from NBC (which I blogged about back in May when reviewing the up coming medical shows from the networks this fall). Just a little note, 'Nurse Jackie' ratings were up 8% this week.


'True Blood' from HBO premiered it's second season. I blogged awhile back about how I wanted to add HBO to my cable package. Funny thing is, I got a call the other day offering me HBO and Cinemax for 6 months for $6.95! They must have read my mind. Unfortunately I didn't catch all of season 1 of 'True Blood' in time before they yanked the season 1 from the On Demand list. So, I haven't watched the episodes from Season 2 yet. Good news is that I can catch season 1 on DVD and I will because the episodes I did see of season 1 were excellent. It averaged 3.7M viewers and was the most watched series on the network since the 'Sopranos'. I have to catch up because I'm missing some good TV by not being in the loop!



In other news, '24' has gained actor Clayne Crawford in the role of a bad boy from Dana Walsh's (Katee Sackhoff) past. She is the character I blogged about a few weeks back who will be the expert CTU analyst involved with Freddie Prinze Jr.'s character. Rick Worthy (Battlestar Galatica) is in negotiations to join the 'Heroes' cast.

And the last bit of news for the day; the CW will launch it's fall season starting on September 8th. Premiere dates are ;


Tuesday, Sept. 8
8:00-9:00 p.m. "90210" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Melrose Place" (Series Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 9
8:00-10:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model" (2-Hour Season Premiere)

Thursday, Sept. 10
8:00-9:00 p.m. "The Vampire Diaries" (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Supernatural" (Season Premiere)

Monday, Sept. 14
8:00-9:00 p.m. "One Tree Hill" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Gossip Girl" (Season Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 16
8:00-9:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "The Beautiful Life: TBL" (Series Premiere)

Friday, Sept. 25
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Smallville" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model" (Encore Episodes)

Don't forget 'Wipeout' tonight followed by ' I Survived A Japanese Game Show' and ' So You Think You Can Dance'. BTW.. my predictions of who would go home last week were right on.