ABC/MARIO PEREZThe Bachelor or The Bachelorette? Ellen DeGeneres or Katie Holmes? And rocket scientists or regular ol' sitcom types?
The answers—and more questions—in our weekly TV quiz:
1. Who's the bigger closer: Jason Mesnick or Jillian Harris? The answer, which is Mesnick, isn't the whole answer. In its own way, last night's rather routine finale for the Harris edition of The Bachelorette was as successful as Mesnick's famously messy Bachelor farewell in March. The Bachelorette season closer scored its biggest audience since 2004, ABC said; in March, The Bachelor scored its biggest audience since 2003.
2. Define big. In the case of The Bachelorette, you're talking nearly 10 million viewers, per preliminary Nielsen estimates. With The Bachelor, the audience numbered about 15.5 million (and then hit 17 million for the Melissa Rycroft-dumping, postfinale show).
3. Who's the more popular dancer: Ellen DeGeneres or Katie Holmes? Going strictly by So You Think You Can Dance results, the answer is Holmes. Holmes' Judy Garland homage on the Thursday edition of SYTYCD outdrew DeGeneres' guest-judge stint on Wednesday's show by 1 million viewers. Neither Holmes nor DeGeneres, however, was able to lift either night over its respective season average.
4. Is there such a thing as a Comic-Con bounce? Maybe. The geek-celebrating Big Bang Theory sure is having a hot rerun summer. In the latest Nielsen rankings, it was TV's No. 1 comedy among adults 18-49. And in the same week its stars hosted a Comic-Con panel, its overall audience grew by some 500,000 viewers over its previous outing, up to 8.8 million brainiac boosters.
5. Didn't a smarty-pants once suggest that America's Got Talent needed a bit more Susan Boyle? Perhaps. And perhaps the smarty-pants was wrong. Because perhaps America's Got Talent rounded up the biggest audience of the summer—13.7 million viewers—for the one of its two episodes last week that didn't feature Boyle. This is just a theory, of course.
6. Name some other hit shows that didn't feature Susan Boyle. The sixth-season opener of Hell's Kitchen was a demo hit (although its overall audience got squeezed a bit by the non-Boyle America's Got Talent), as was the penultimate episode of The Bachelorette. (Last night's Bachelorette will be counted in next week's rankings.)
In cable, Burn Notice (6.8 million) topped The Closer (6.6 million), and everything else. Royal Pains (6.5 million), The Wizards of Waverly Place (5 million) and Hannah Montana (4.8 million) were also up there.
7. What's the good news for Conan O'Brien? His shrinking demo advantage over David Letterman stopped shrinking, at least for the week of July 13-17. And among total viewers, O'Brien's Tonight Show started losing to Letterman's Late Show by just a little less.
8. What's the bad news for Conan O'Brien and David Letterman? In the latest late-night rankings, Nightline outdrew 'em both.