| my take on Sunday |
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It's all about football now. Sunday Night Football wasn't a factor in the network race when it was on ESPN. It's going to become a huge promotional platform for NBC and all of the NBCU channels (Bravo, SciFi, etc). My takes the night off, while the CW strikes comedy against Fox' three-quarters animated sked. CBS Sunday is without a skedded movie for the first time since the year after Trapper John, M.D. left the air (1986). ABC moved Grey's Anatomy and added one of only two new shows for the night; there are plenty of moves to and around Sunday night.
ABC holds steady with the same initial hours as last year, America's Funniest Home Videos at 7, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition at 8 and Desperate Housewives at 9. Every year I do this and am somewhat surprised to see AFHV still on the sked, except that it probably has one of the highest profit margins of any show, so why get rid of it. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (why still call it that? Extreme Makeover is no longer on the schedule) still chugs along and has a slew of in-show promo that have to draw big bucks for ABC. There's going to be more competition this year with The Amazing Race and Sunday Night Football. Desperate Housewives had a creative, if not ratings, sophomore slump. Creator Marc Cherry is reportedly back in charge, so I'd look for some of the buzz to be back. Brothers & Sisters has had some behind the scenes drama and well, as I mention on the show page, I'm just not sure about its chances. Without A Trace is some stiff competition, as is the last hour or so of football in the East and Central.
What would CBS Sunday night be without 60 Minutes batting leadoff? This year, its thirty-eighth season begins on the 38th anniversary of the first time the stopwatch began to tick. To put that into perspective, its Tuesday night lead-in was The Doris Day Show and in its now customary Sunday slot? Lassie and Gentle Ben. I think The Amazing Race is a great fit at 8 and a nice lead-in to the solid Cold Case at 9. Cold Case doesn't need to worry about Housewives: they couldn't be going after more different audiences. CBS Sunday is topped off by the newly relocated Without A Trace. Depending on the matchup of Sunday Night Football, and if Housewives has a resurgence, CBS will either win or place for the night, but most likely win in the demo they care about.
The new CW, and yes, I'll just get it out of the way now: it's a dumb name and, well, I realize they were going for retro for some reason, but it's an unattractive logo. Onward to UPN Sunday, oops, I mean the CW Sunday. Of course this is where three former UPN comedies landed. Starting at 7, Everybody Hates Chris (the only survivor of last fall's UPN sked), All of Us, Girlfriends and the first made-just-for-the-CW sitcom, The Game. There's an encore run of America's Next Top Model rounding out the CW Sunday. Chris got a lot of buzz in the beginning of the season, but it faded fast. All of Us and Girlfriends? I don't know anyone who watches or has ever watched 'em: white, black, yellow, red, blue, pink with green speckles or whatever ethnicity you might be. The Game will just blend into that, um, blah, threesome until a repeat of Top Model. Sunday is not the CW's strong night.
The Foxies are doing that animation thing they do so well. The night starts with whatever late NFL game runs over (East/Central) and they fill until The Simpsons at 8 with encores of other animated series. (I like how repeat is now spelled encore.) Speaking of Homer and the gang, they've been around forever and a half and haven't aged a day. I'm talking about the writing. American Dad is a more-than serviceable companion and the back-from-the-dead Family Guy makes a nice 90 minutes of animation. The War At Home finishes the night only because Fox doesn't have anyplace else for it. Fox will hit the numbers they shoot for.
Are you ready for some over-the-air Sunday Night Football? Big shakeup where Monday Night Football heads to ESPN after 37 years on ABC while NBC grabs the Sunday package from ESPN, where somehow, it's been for 20 years. Where the hell did those two decades go? Huge promo platform for NBC, and they need it. One of the issues about being mired in fourth place is that you can't promo any new shows, no matter how great they are, since no one is watching you to begin with. I expect a Top 10 performance from SNF.
The night's Top 3 are Sunday Night Football, Desperate Housewives and Without A Trace. |
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