Which Shows Just Can't Be Killed?

Can nothing stop Glee, Walking Dead or Two and a Half Men in the TV ratings—not even Charlie Sheen

By Joal Ryan Nov 02, 2010 7:12 PMTags
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What do zombies, Charlie Sheen and Glee have in common?

The answers—and more questions—in the latest ratings quiz:

1. Zombies and Charlie Sheen: What's the connection? You can't stop either one. AMC killed with its Halloween-night premiere of Walking Dead (5.3 million viewers, tops for the week among all cable series).

Sheen, meanwhile, flipped out in New York, got dumped by his wife…and earned a welcome-home embrace from the loving arms of 18-to-49-year-olds who made last night's Two and a Half Men TV's highest-rated show in the demo.

Also, that new Nick cartoon, Planet Sheen? The one about a short-attenion-span kid named, ahem, Sheen Estevez? A big hit.

2. Zombies, Charlie Sheen—and Glee: What's the connection? Same deal as before. In its first new episode since being called out for pedophilia , and/or making Tuesday nights unsafe for 8-year-olds, Glee's ratings went up. Its overall audience grew from 11.4 milion for the "Duets" episode to 11.8 million for the Rocky Horror tribute.

3. Zombies, Charlie Sheen, Glee—and Jay Leno: What's the connection? Take a guess.

Despite the fact that his Tonight Show demo ratings are lower than Conan O'Brien's were at the same point last fall, Leno is No. 1. Just like he used to be. (And, sorry Team CoCo, but just like O'Brien wasn't.)

4. How'd crowning Gretchen over Mondo work out for Project Runway? Pretty good. On the upside, the two-hour finale averaged 3.7 million, putting it near the tip-top of the cable rankings. On the downside, it was the least-watched finale of the Lifetime era. On the fair side, it was virtually even with last spring's closer.

5. Was the canceled Caprica treated unfairly? Not by Syfy. Last week's episode averaged 843,000, well below the network's prime-time average of 1.3 million. That kind of math just doesn't add up.

6. Name three surprising developments from the latest DVR-adjusted ratings. One, The Mentalist beat the usual suspects (Grey's Anatomy, Modern Family, etc.), and added the most viewers over seven days of playback (3.1 million). Two, the presumably stodgy Blue Bloods was a Top 10 DVR show, adding 2.2 million. Three, Life Unexpected only added 380,000 viewers, which is a pretty big percentage for the little-watched show, but still…

As for last week's Nielsen Media Research broadcast rankings, well, football and baseball took up a lot of the top spots, so here's the edited version of the Top 10, focusing on the comedy shows, the drama shows and Audrina Partridge

  1. Dancing With the Stars (Monday), 20.4 million viewers
  2. NCIS, 20.2 million
  3. NCIS: Los Angeles, 16 million
  4.  Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), 15.9 million
  5. The Mentalist, 14.8 million
  6. CSI, 14.3 million
  7. Criminal Minds, 14 million
  8. Two and a Half Men, 13.8 million
  9. Modern Family, 13.1 million
  10. The Big Bang Theory, 13 million

 

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