Here's a look at the Top 5 TV news stories of the week!
2021 ended on a sad note with the news that Betty White passed away at the age of 99, just weeks away from her 100th birthday. It'll be hard to write anything about White that hasn't already been written but America's grandma has had an incredible career. From a pioneer in the early live TV days of the 1950s to a staple on game shows to her Emmy winning run on The Golden Girls to her renaissance in her late 80s and early 90s on Hot in Cleveland, Super Bowl commercials and, famously, hosting Saturday Night Live after a Facebook campaign. But my favorite turn from Betty White was as the delightfully tart Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She had an incredible way of delivering horribly nasty lines with a sugary sweet smile on her face. That iconic sitcom lost four cast members in 2021 and now none of the main cast is still with us. It's hard to get too sad when someone has a full and wonderful life and lives to be 99, but it's also hard to believe that someone so full of life for decades upon decades is no longer with us.
Broadcast TV ratings are not really a big story these days because Broadcast TV is increasingly marginalized in our streaming world but that doesn't mean there aren't still weeks that are heavy on broadcast premieres. Most notably, the third week in September and the first week in January. While every show's ratings could be looked at with dismay compared to even a few years ago, it can still be telling how shows do in relation to each other. Most notable was one of Broadcast TV's last big hits, This is Us, coming in strong for its final season premiere. It had a 1.0 demo premiere which would have been horrific a couple years ago but that's pretty rare these days for a scripted show. Among the many comedies that had series or season premieres, Abbott Elementary was the strongest, airing after a decent performance from the premiere of Judge Steve Harvey while The Cleaning Lady appeared to be an upgrade from The Big Leap on FOX Mondays. On the other side of the coin, both Grand Crew on NBC and Good Sam on CBS came in very, very low and Grand Crew's comedy partner American Auto wasn't much better.
The COVID surge is impacting lots of things nationwide. But one of two TV issues specifically about COVID this week has been the way it has hit the late night shows. Late night hosts have been interesting throughout the pandemic: to doing shows in their houses to audience-less shows to welcoming back full audiences. But this week we learned that Jimmy Fallon had COVID over the holiday break and Seth Meyers and James Corden tested positive this week, prompting cancellations of shows for the latter two. All three are fine but Stephen Colbert might want to be extra careful because COVID has been coming for the late night hosts! It isn't totally confined to late night either with The View host Whoopi Goldberg and Today's Hoda Kotb also testing positive this week.
#4 - COVID DELAYS AGAIN
You know it's been a bad week when COVID is a topic of one entry in the Top 5. But two? Yuck. The Omicron surge has prompted a wave of production shutdowns. Shows that have seen their winter returns delayed or production shut down include Grey's Anatomy, Station 19, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles Chicago Fire and Star Trek: Picard. And not every show is even back yet. Also, the Grammys announced they will delay their broadcast for a second year in a row, vacating the planned January 31 date. Hopefully this is the last big surge!
#5 - SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
Here's a look at this week's scripted premieres!
Sunday: HBO has the return of The Righteous Gemstones and Euphoria. Both shows haven't been seen with regular seasons since the Summer of 2019 so it's been a long time for both. Euphoria has stayed in the public consciousness a little bit more though. FOX has the return of Call Me Kat and Jeopardy producers are likely to be rooting for failure since it would free Mayim Bialik up to host the game show full time. It is paired with the new comedy Pivoting starring Eliza Coupe, Ginnifer Goodwin and Maggie Q as three friends. Both shows will get a football-boosted premiere but then have to survive on their own on Thursday nights.
Tuesday: The CW has the return of Superman & Lois, which was a decent performer by CW standards during its first season. It is paired with a new DC show, Naomi, which isn't as well known of a property. OWN has the premiere of The Kings of Napa, a soapy family drama that gets on the air a couple weeks before the similarly themed Promised Land on ABC.
Thursday: HBO Max has a DC series of its own with Peacemaker, a show spun off from the movie Suicide Squad and starring John Cena. Some people in comic book circles seem excited about this one. Peacock drops the limited series Wolf Like Me starring Isla Fisher and Josh Gad, which seems to have very little buzz.
My pick for the week:
Considering Euphoria was on my Top 10 Most Anticipated Returning Shows for the year, I will of course go with that. I am also curious to try The Righteous Gemstones but I'll watch Season 1 first. I sort of watched Call Me Kat last year and thought it was okay so I'll probably check that out and Pivoting but might have a short leash for both.
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