So, Betty Draper Francis put on some weight in 1966. So, what?
So, as you might expect from a world where Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games' curves rate unkind words, the knives are out—and the TV ratings are down!?
Yes, but not by much.
Sunday's latest episode was one of cable's top shows of the week, with 2.9 million viewers.
That's off a little from last week's fifth-season premiere, but overall meant there were plenty of eyeballs ogling, if you'll pardon the expression, "Fat Betty."
The character's storyline development was spurred by actress January Jones' real-life pregnancy.
"Looks like Betty maybe already ate a baby or two," went one typical comment on the A.V. Club's episode-recap discussion thread.
"All I could think about while watching Betty last night was 'haha betty got fat,'" went another.
And then there was the inevitable: "I'm a terrible person Betty Draper is so fat, Jabba the Hutt said 'DAYUM!'"
If the Internet is not always kind, then at least TV viewers are more accepting, Nielsen-wise, of varying body types than of a show that "screwed its audience over and over again" last year.
Translation: Mad Men's Sunday lead-in, The Killing (1.8 million viewers), was off a lot (33 percent) from that show's season-one premiere.
Other TV ratings winners—and losers, per the latest broadcast and cable rankings:
• Kids' Choice Awards (6.2 million viewers): The good news is it was cable's No. 1 show. The bad news is it registered its smallest audience in five years. The troubling question for Justin Bieber is: Is the attraction in seeing him slimed just about over?
• Academy of Country Music Awards (13.1 million viewers): The ratings were about even with last year; the Taylor Swift train rolls right along.
• Game of Thrones (3.9 million viewers): The HBO giant was the anti-Killing: Up 74 percent—74 percent!—over its season-one opener. No cable drama was bigger.
• Punk'd (3.2 million viewers): The Ashton Kutcher prank series took five years off, and went straight back into cable's Top 20.
• The Voice (12 million viewers): The war with American Idol is off for now, as this show has been off for the past month. Last night's episode fell to an estimated 10.7 million viewers.
• Whitney (4.1 million viewers) and Are You There, Chelsea? (3.1 million viewers): The comedies closed out their freshman seasons on the low side. So, does Two and a Half Men's co-creator and freelance TV critic get the last laugh? Uh, no.
Here's a complete look at the top 10 most-watched broadcast shows, per the latest Nielsen rankings:
- NCIS, 18.6 million viewers
- Dancing With the Stars (Monday), 18 million viewers
- American Idol (Wednesday), 17.9 million viewers
- NCAA men's basketball tournament (Ohio State vs. Kansas), 16.6 million viewers
- American Idol (Thursday), 15.9 million viewers
- Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), 15.7 million viewers
- NCIS: Los Angeles, 14.8 million viewers
- Person of Interest, 14.6 million viewers
- The Big Bang Theory, 14 million viewers
- The Mentalist, 13.6 million viewers