DearEvette

The trailers for Uncle Buck and Dr. Ken are is so spectacularly unfunny. Uncle Buck feels like it has zero personality. And Ken Jeong has no comedic timing. Containment looks interesting but it is a Julie Plec show and given her track record with POC on her other shows, not holding my breath on this... Rosewood looks like it could be fun. And I like the fact that we get the rare co-lead combination of two persons of color. Usually one of the pair must be white. I am cautiously looking forward to Minority Report because I love scfi and I even more love sci fi with a WOC lead. The production values look good and Megan Goode looks like she feels more comfortable in this role than she did in Deception.

Yeah, I'd be curious how race plays into that mapping because I do think it has bearing on marketing and would give an even more nuanced picture. I can't imagine black women being as into Scorpion as Sleepy Hollow. But then again black female sff fans and Blerds in general are an underserved market. Black fandom for Game of Thrones for instance, is soo frickin' robust and there are no black main characters. So it is alll story that is pulling them in! I think S1 of Sleepy Hollow was on the cusp of tapping into that market but S2 really frittered it away by sidelining their POC cast members and then dumbing down their mythology. If they can rally for S3 I think they might be able to gain some momentum in that demographic again. I wasn't even thinking about Scorpion at all when I started looking at the audience map. I was more concerned about how the possible demo overlapped with Scandal & Blacklist. Short sighted of me, but I always felt that SH's loss of audience was due solely to how Sleepy itself had floundered, I never once thought of Scorpion stealing SH's audience. But looking at the Scorpion map made it evident that it was actual real demo competition for Sleepy. Frankly, even though Scandal is a clear ratings winner I am thinking that Sleepy will hold it's own.

Showbuzz daily came out with a set of audience maps just recently for the 2014-2015 tv season that breaks down the viewership for each primetime show based on age groups & gender. It further color-codes the map based on whether that viewership falls within the low, middle or high range for that network. In looking at the audience map for Sleepy Hollow, the picture emerges that it falls in the middle of the Fox viewership re: ratings but skewes higher the older the audience. It also skews male by a comfortable margin. Only in the 21-24 age group does female viewership outpace male viewership for Sleepy Hollow. Interestingly, Scorpion's age/gender map looks disturbingly like Sleepy Hollow's even to the point that it is in the same 21-24 age group that women skew higher than men. Hence it really looks like they share the same audience make-up. Scorpion skews male in much the same margin that SH does, and it falls comfortably in the middle of CBS viewership range. So imo, SH's ratings got hit by the one-two punch of a bad storyline and competition that attracted the same demo. So it is no surprise their ratings took a hit. Meanwhile over on ABC, no surprise at all, but Scandal skews overwhelmingly female. I mean, really, really female. It outpaces male viewership by a big margin. In a surprise (to me at least), The Blacklist also skews heavily female. I was sure that would be a a male skewing show. The Fox audience map is here: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/audience-map-fox-primetime-full-2014-2015-season.html

It is all in the inflection in his voice when he talks about it. It is just sad to me because you can tell he loved working in S1. He may have been a regular in S2 but you can tell that he was frustrated by his role. It feels like he is heavily implying that his work as the Sin Eater gave him more satisfaction than his expanded role as War in S2. And it was a more nuanced and better role both in writing and performance.

They have recast Rath's role on PEOPLE ARE TALKING. According to Deadline the actress is Brooke Ishibashi. She is an actress of color. She also looks to be a total newbie. According to IMDB, PEOPLE ARE TALKING is her only professional industry credit. She looks to be primarily a theatre actress.

John Noble at MCM Comicon: Some choice quotes re: season 2 "It struggled. We all know that." "I loved the first season. I thought the first season was fantastic. The second season, I wondered what was going on. I really wondered what was going on." Choice quote re: season 3 "They've got a very simple brief. Reboot the show and go back and concentrate on the Ichabod & Abbie thing which was the strength of it in the beginning. I am so hopeful it will come back because it did lose it's way." Here's the link to the whole interview: https://youtu.be/uUkyLBRSmCQ?t=1m3s

Normally the subject matter of Hannibal just doesn't work for me. But because he will be on it along with my girl-crush Rutina Wesley, I am giving it a look-see this season.

...moved from Media thread... Like I said somewheres else... the bigger push for more diversity and more and more leading ladies or major characters of color will inevitably lead to just this sort of scheduling. If the trend toward casting actors of color continues in major roles (and this is a good thing!) then more and more viewers and are going to have to decide just this sort of thing. Networks can not use that to avoid pitting these shows against each other. Quite the opposite in fact, if they can feel that they can peel off viewers from one demographic they will do it in a heartbeat (altho I don't think this is what Fox is necessarily doing here, but if they do succeed in pulling WOC viewers away from Scandal you'll bet they'll claim that was their plan all along). You can blame Fox for pitting a struggling show against a power show. But you can't blame them for pitting one show with a black actor against another. If this trend does continue, it will become less about supporting an actor of color, and more about supporting a show that is entertaining and serving those characters well. And in my highly unscientific poll with a fairly small data set, I know of quite few black female viewers who watch both shows and are choosing to watch Sleepy Hollow. And mostly it is because they are kinda over Scandal and it is because of how Olivia is being written and how the story seems to be under-serving her. I mean we complain on SH how Goffmann was pushing his Katrina agenda, but at least Abbie was still unquestionably the heroine of the show. But I would argue that Shonda has been just as guilty of pushing Mellie-as-heroine agenda as well. She has been writing a Mellie/Olivia as Madonna/Whore since Season 3. Mellie as rape victim/martyr/mother while Olivia is being shown as sexual currency between her father & two boyfriends. Believe me, this does not go over well and in my small data set. LOL. I think we can only wait and see, but I don't see Scandal as an unscalable mountain. And if FOX actually promotes Sleepy Hollow during it's highly rated shows (hint* Empire* hint) then it might even have a fighting chance.

Moved to ratings & scheduling thread

I just binge watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Eva Longoria was a guest star in a couple of episodes. This reminded me wasn't there some huge beef between her and Teri Hatcher very early on in the (like first or second season) of Desperate Housewives? I remember some stuff came out about that during Nicolette Sheridan's lawsuit against Marc Cherry and there was a big to do about Teri's name being left off a gift from all the housewives to the crew after the show wrapped. But I still remember there was some early days beef and Teri seemed to be in the thick of it.

Oh. My. God. Ha! It is like they were handed a script and all the correct words are coming out. I hope she's right. I really hope that is really what they do and it works out for all of us.

Yeah, he was responding to a question, from Ted Casablanca from 'E'. And Washington grabbed the mike before Shonda could. So I think while there had been rumors of a fight, ABC had kept a lid on the specific details. But somehow Ted got some pretty deep intel and it was the first question the cast was asked after winning the Globes. I think Isaiah actually saying "F****t' on screen in response to Ted's question was what got people so upset. Curiously, no one quotes what Ted's actual question was. But some people maintain that Ted asked point blank 'Did you call TR a f****t' and Isaiah simply quotes him back denying it. But most media reports just say "when asked about tensions on the set." Whatever the case, it was clear that someone leaked specifics of what went on on set and they got blind-sided backstage and the rest blew up.

Backstage feuds are so fun to speculate about even when you have no proof of anything. Especially when you have no proof of anything. My speculations re: The Good Wife: Totally Juliana Margulies' fault, imo. No way Archie has the power or clout to force the showrunners to write scripts & shoot scenes in such a way that these two women don't have to be in the same room together. Honestly, this has the smell of some real higher up power. The Kings come off as sounding somewhat insincere in their interviews like they are talking from a script themselves. And JM has a long standing close personal relationship with both the two head honchos at CBS. Grey's Anatomy: Re: the the Washington/Knight/Heigl stuff always made me think that all involved came off as a bunch of entitled & spoiled assholes. Now, this is just my speculation of events at the time, but It always seemed to me like Shonda & ABC were trying to deal with the behind the scenes stuff with Washington in-house. He made a homophobic remark, had a fight with a co-worker and by trying to keep it under wraps they were trying to avoid a PR nightmare. But it got leaked and they still managed to do damage control. But I got the impression that Knight & Heigl weren't happy that it seemed he was getting off lightly so they started talking to the press. Knight came out as gay and then went on Ellen and said 'that everyone heard him say it' and Heigl backed him up in other interviews. Which is also kinda interesting since according to later interviews by Washington, he was explicitly told he couldn't talk to the press about it. So it feels like they forced ABCs & SR's hand and Washington got fired. Not only that but Knight was also going around saying that SR told him he shouldn't come out publicly, which she denied. So Bad mojo all around. Frankly I don't blame Shonda or ABC for firing all three. Their various tantrums all detracted from the show. Although, of the three, I missed Burke the most. I loved that character and couldn't stand either George or Izzie. Oh Isaiah why did you have to be a bigot? Sleepy Hollow: I myself have probably written a book about speculations in the Sleepy Hollow thread, but it feels so obvious that the showrunner wanted to use the show to highlight his own personal muse, Katia Winter who played the Katrina character at the expense of, well, everybody else. Her rise reflected so badly on every other character. To their credit the actors all seemed to get along real well and had no beef with each other. But the writers room seemed like a mess. I want to know how hard the network smacked Goffman down. Orlando Jones throwing shade is a given. But when John Noble throws glorious., glorious shade you know stuff is bad. LOL. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air: So was Aunt Viv crazy or nah? Was Will Smith a horrible person who did horrible things to Janet Huber and made her life hell on set? Inquiring minds want to know. I don't care if Original Recipe Aunt Viv was horrid, I liked her soooo much more than the replacement.

OH, The CW's My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend looks like it could either be brilliant or an out and out mess. One thing, the trailer was very...thorough. LOL. I think I will have to give that one a shot.

I think that is the point, though. A lot of people simply can't discuss politics rationally hence in the end, everything devolves into just feelings which leads to shouting. And it doesn't help that the current political climate has allowed identity politics to really take on so much importance a lot of people simply can't distinguish (or even define) the difference political theories or ideologies between the different parties except how it gets translated to a micro-personal issue. This is why I have a hard and fast rule to never, ever, ever, ever talk politics (or religion) with extended family or at work. After one horrid Thanksgiving where a distant family member on the husband's side crowed he'd never vote Democrat because all they want to do is 'take away our guns and let gays marry' while at the same time bitching about how his wife (a teacher) has 'to jump through all these hoops' because of 'The Feds telling her how she needs to teach her classes.' I kept my mouth shut becasue even though I could have factually refuted his arguments (and pointed out his own political contradictions), I was too busy being incoherent with rage because beyond just the political stuff that he was just a raging asshat and I couldn't even begin to be rational. So I am sure I would have sounded liked Bow & Dre. LOL.

"No free lunch for you." LOL Also, Bow & Ruby simply not hearing the word 'Republican' -- Banana Republic? Crazy good return policy! Notary Public? A Noble Profession! A member of the Irish Republican Army? So what you gotta take out some fish & choip shops!" or Ruby moaning "Black Jesus! Black Jesus!' & hugging Bow. I actually thought this was an interesting look at the whole 'black aren't Republicans' thing especially since there are ideological reasons that could be argued either way, but a lot of people get too emotional to actually articulate them. 'Let him talk? Can he talk? Can my man talk?' ha! All things considered, I thought this was a funny but not too fraught way to dip into the topic.

NBC & CBS are doing nothing for me. Fox and ABC look the most interesting to me. I am kinda digging Lucifer, The Catch & The Real O'neals.

I know that a lot of viewers, esp. Nikki Beharie fans, are coming to it from that perspective, but I don't think a network person necesasrily thinks that way. I think they see it as counter-programming. Scandal is a soap opera with a primarily female fan-base. Sleepy Hollow is a genre show with, yeah, more female that male fans (I suspect) but probabnly with a higher percentage of male fans than Scandal has. They shed a lot of male fans in S2 because of the CFD, but I am wondering if they are planning to try to woo some of them back? One of the by-products of having more and more diverse programming is that inevitably some of those programs are going to go against each other. People were upset that Empire was opposite Black-ish, but Black-ish is doing well for itself and holding up really good in a time slot that has killed many other comedies. Right now Fox is actually giving us a black female lead on Monday, a black female lead on Wednesday and now a black female lead on Thursday. I would have loved for SH to remain on Monday and paired with with Minority report. And have Gotham/Lucifer on Thursday and kept Bones on Friday (where it was actually doing quite well). But I can see the logic in their programming decision. And I agree, a move to Thursday is a huge vote of confidence in the show. Fox's real problem is that they have 5 fewer hours a week to work with than the other nets. I guess there are affiliate reasons why they can't expand into the 10 o'clock hour but it makes scheduling a real hassle.

Replying to @blixie's post in the Ratings & scheduling forum as the discussion seems more germane there....

I tend to agree. I know some of the early sentiment on twitter in reaction to the scheduling was that it was a way for Fox to kill off Sleepy Hollow. But I don't see it that way. If they really were trying to ease SH off to pasture then they would have put it on a Sunday (more competitive than Thursday, imo) or Friday. Call me crazy, but I do think their reasoning -- playing to the core fanbase -- is sound. The people that stuck through the abysmal S2 are going to be the people who will watch it on Thursday. I think Fox may have a handle on what those numbers are. And let's be frank, Scandal is not some juggernaut that can't credibly challenged. SH doesn't need to beat Scandal, it just needs to hold it's own.

I watch both Sleepy Hollow and Scandall. if I had to choose which gets my live watch it would be Sleepy Hollow hands down. Some days I don't get to Scandal til, like, Saturday. Not that my watch pattern matters, I am not a Nielsen family. I can only think that Fox has some sweet spot rating share in it's head that it needs SH to maintain. Realistically they must know that it is not going to get astronomical numbers against Scandal & Blacklist, but if they can maintain that sweet spot, Fox will be happy. And if the new showrunner can deliver some good content then I think viewers and fans will be happy.

Ok. So Sleepy Hollow is on Thursdays at 9:00. After Bones. Hmm....

This should probably be in the unpoplular opinions thread... but I don't hate the idea of a Hawley revisit. His character deployment was majorly fucked up. He usurped Jenny & he was placed as yet another impediment to fans to get shippers off the Ichabbie tip. Even worse, he was placed as possble a romantic rivalry between the sisters. Which was utterly, utterly stupid. But when they took that all off the table and made him a partner to Jenny (in The Wendingo & Kali Yuga) he was good. As a matter of fact, he was a nice foil to Ichabod with whom he shared really good actorly chemsitry (the scenes in the church and the scenes with the Native American bikers come to mind). Truthfully, Matt Barr had good actor chemistry with Nicole, Lyndie and Tom. You can't say the same for Katia.

Yes. I was soo thrilled when he said that. Out loud! And I love that he said the 'Ready, Captain?' line was not in the script but something Nicole Beharie came up with.

Oh, forgot to mention.... I loved Diane's hand-to-the-chest pearl-clutching gesture she made after Jack revealed how he played her. She's done it before and it feels like an incongruously old lady gesture that this little girl is doing. But it completely fits her. A nice little piece of physical comedy that speaks volumes in that moment.