Not much of a showdown

So the big story last night was that, really for the first time ever, there was something worth watching on all four major networks at once. I'm not sure if it's sad that this is the first time that's happened in 74+ years of television or if it's just really cool.

In any case, it wasn't much of a contest for me. Theoretically, with three Tivos and five total tuners, I could have recorded all four and re-recorded the Everybody Hates Chris reruns on UPN, but my point is it wasn't even worth it. Let's see... we had:

American Idol results show on Fox - Bloated to an hour of recaps, inane blathering from Seacrest and repeat performances from the people we didn't like enough to vote for in the first place (please someone tell me how that makes sense), all to get to what we really want to know, which is who was cut. I can get that online an hour before it even airs here. No thanks.

Dancing With the Stars on ABC - The first season was amusing in a train wreck sorta way, but without John O'Hurley's mugging it's just no fun anymore. Sorry, Jerry Rice.

Survivor on CBS - Through many, many seasons I was a diehard Survivor fan, then three seasons ago it completely lost me. I quit watching and though I always checked out the new season pilot, it never pulled me back in. This season was almost different. I dug the new division of four tribes. But then in episode two they merged things back down to two tribes. Huh? Same old crap wrapped in new and uninteresting challenges and no compelling personalities to root for. I'm outta here.

which leaves...
Ladies Long Program Figure Skating on NBC - I admit, I'm a huge Olympic junkie, and I especially love figure skating. I attended this event here in Salt Lake in 2002 and even made a sign for Michelle Kwan ("Kick Ice, Michelle!"). tivogirl = dork, yes I know. But that aside, this was a compelling competition with just .03 points separating the top two skaters, one who barely missed the podium last time and another who though she should've been one step higher. But the dark horse loomed - in third, and just .7 off the leader was a sprite from Japan, a country who had never gotten gold in the event and who hadn't won a single medal this entire Olympics. What drama!

The overnight ratings still haven't been released, but my bet is Idol won in viewership. The Olympics have been down this year, mostly due to idiotic time shifting by NBC (more on this in another post) and the fact that everyone knows the results before anything airs. Survivor is still big, as is Dancing, but Idol has been king since it returned. I don't see any reasÅ
for that to change
Åw.

Posted by tivogirl at 10:03 AM