Here's a look at my Top 5 TV news stories of the week!
We lost three legends in the last week with Larry King, Cicely Tyson and Cloris Leachman. All had contributions in a variety of mediums through many decades but I would mostly like to talk about Leachman, who passed away Wednesday at the age of 94. She had a long career in film, on stage and on TV. But she will always be best remembered by me as Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. As Mary's very self assured and sometimes snobby landlord, she didn't make a ton of appearances but always made her mark when she did. Her warring with Valerie Harper's Rhoda provided much of the comedy early on in the series. Her shining moment though came in Season 4's "The Lars Affair," my favorite episode of the series. Phyllis went toe to toe with her husband's alleged mistress, the first appearance of Sue Ann Nivens, played by Betty White. It might be best remembered for being White's first appearance by Leachman was really the star of the episode and simply hilarious. She earned a well deserved Emmy Award for that episode. May she rest in peace.
Take this with a grain of salt because we just never know how accurate Netflix's numbers are when they do self-reporting. But according to the streamer, Bridgerton is their most viewed new series ever. The period drama, which was released on Christmas, is reported to have had 82 million viewers tune in during its first 28 days. Of course we know that "tuning in" could mean as little as watching two minutes of one episode. We could quibble with the specific numbers but there's no denying that Bridgerton is a hit. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably seen at least a few people in your social orbit talking about it. The series has already been renewed for a second season.
ABC has set a few spring premieres and reshuffled their Thursday lineup in the process. The Thursday lineup will return in tact at first but later than originally planned. On March 11, Station 19, Grey's Anatomy and A Million Little Things will return. On April 8, Million will give way to Rebel, a drama from ABC's new favorite showrunner Krista Vernoff and starring Katey Sagal. ABC will have a new version of TGIT as all three shows by that point will be created or showrun by Vernoff. Meanwhile, A Million Little Things will move to Wednesdays at 10pm, its original timeslot. Speaking of Wednesdays, Home Economics starring Topher Grace will take over the 8:30pm slot from American Housewife starting April 7. And finally, the Rebel Wilson-hosted dog competition series Pooch Perfect will premiere March 30 at 8pm. Other non-ABC network premiere dates announced this week are Debris on NBC on March 1 and United States of Al on CBS on April 1.
#4 - "MODERN FAMILY" COMES TO HULU & PEACOCK
Modern Family finally has a streaming home. The series, which was a huge hit on ABC from 2009-2020, has aired on a variety of cable networks but has never had an official streaming network besides the recent episodes airing on Hulu. Now the entire 250 episode library will air on both Hulu and Peacock. It's a multi-year deal that will also include a few free episodes at a time on Peacock. This is probably a bigger deal for the young Peacock service than Hulu.
#5 - RENEWALS OF THE WEEK
This week saw The Blacklist renewed for a ninth season on NBC despite ever diminishing returns and interest while The Bold Type was renewed for a fifth and final season on Freeform. Also noteworthy is that the upcoming third season of the underrated Aidy Bryant Hulu comedy Shrill will be the final one.
Check back next week for a new week of blog posts!
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