Here's a look at the Top 5 TV news stories this week!
There was a ton of hype for the big Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on Sunday night and the ratings did not disappoint. It's pretty rare these days that a major non-sports TV event can draw eyeballs all at once with even award shows looking worse and worse. But the interview delivered huge ratings and exceeded most expectations. It earned 17.8 million viewers and a 2.7 demo for CBS. Shows used to regularly do those kind of numbers or better but in 2021, that's a real big deal. It also garnered huge numbers in the UK the next night and has no doubt had a ton of digital viewing in the days since. Leave it to Oprah to still be able to pull big numbers on Broadcast TV in 2021!
Speaking of Sunday nights on CBS, the Eye network renewed The Equalizer for a second season. The Queen Latifah drama got the much coveted post-Super Bowl slot and the numbers were somewhat disappointing by those standards. But since then it has held up pretty well for a drama on network TV in 2021 and that made it an easy renewal. If it stays in its same slot in the fall, it could even see its ratings improve on NFL nights. In a season with very few new shows overall and even less that have made any kind of noise at all, this is a win for CBS. Also renewed this week was the charming Central Park on Apple TV+ ahead of its second season coming in June.
Superstore is wrapping up its six year run later this month and a teaser photo came out this week that indicates America Ferrera will return for the one hour series finale on March 25. That seems fitting because she was the star of the series before her departure at the beginning of this season. I wonder if Ferrera could have been convinced to return for one more go-round if she knew it was going to be the final season. My guess is yes but oh well. Although her character was frustrating at times, it's only right that she comes back for the finale.
#4 - NATALIE PORTMAN & LUPITA NYONG'O JOIN "LADY IN THE LAKE"
The most interesting casting of the week came from Apple TV+ as they announced that Academy Award winners Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong'o will star in a new limited series, Lady in the Lake based on a best-selling novel. The series is set in 1960s Baltimore and deals with an unsolved murder and two women with very different life experiences. This is one of many exciting Apple TV+ titles in the works!
#5 - SOME THOUGHTS ON "WANDAVISION"
It was a pretty slow news week for TV so I thought I would share just a few thoughts on the series everyone talked about this winter, WandaVision. I won't say too much and there could be more on this show in my end of season awards (we'll see how the rest of the limited series play out). But I am not a Marvel fan (all I've seen is The Avengers and Thor) and yet I was very captivated by WandaVision. That's because it was basically pandering to me with the homages to classic TV. I recognized the show struggled often with storytelling and pacing and yet it hardly mattered because I just loved the carefully constructed styles and motifs that exemplified the sitcoms of each era. The final episodes, while no longer homages to TV, packed a lot of plot to keep me engaged and I appreciate that as big as the show went with special effects and production value, it was at its heart a very interesting story about grief. And Kathryn Hahn is a treasure. That's all.
Check back next week for a new week of blog posts!
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