JessePinkman

Empire's ratings haven't impacted black-ish in the least, black-ish was trending downward before the two shows even faced each other. In fact black-ish has actually seen its ratings increase at least once against Empire. The people asking for it to be moved are ignorant people who believe all black people watch the same shows. MF hasn't really been impacted by Empire either. It's a 5 and a half year old show that's still doing boffo ratings.

He's clearly joking. Fox isn't going to move the show. I've seen plenty of showrunners joke or complain about time slot competition. Arrested Development had the creator of Desperate Housewives ON their show as DH was crushing AD in the ratings. There's nothing to read into here.

Taraji's face when Terrence said he felt like God...that dude is not far removed from his character. And I have this weird impulse to give Taraji a hug, she seems so huggable.

Well, I imagine a savvy person, someone who knows he has an ego the size of Jupiter, would write multiple options for him before presenting their first so what you're saying doesn't make much sense to me. He seemed open to being in a sketch just not that one. The idea that they had Eddie Murphy returning to the show after decades and only presented one (in my opinion, lame) idea is absurd to me. I think nowandlater is probably right, that there's more to the story. Unfortunately EM rejecting a Bill Cosby joke is the more "newsworthy" story.

I'm a little obsessed...sue me. Empire up again: Top rated broadcast drama telecast in five years

Woop! Final numbers are very likely to be higher.

Preliminary numbers...the show went up yet again (the demo will be out later):

You have EDDIE MURPHY returning to the show after 30 some odd years and you only offer him one option? I call BS.

I get it, it's like your old job that you saved from ruin mocking you (actually that's literally what it is). Eddie Murphy wasn't just another cast member, he saved the institution that is now so revered. I totally get why it would upset him. Also if he didn't want to do Cosby, isn't there ANYTHING else they could have written for him? Why is the onus on him to just do the sketch and not on the writers to write something he found funny? And honestly, it doesn't sound like funny beyond "Here is Eddie Murphy as rapist Bill Cosby". Coming up with that doesn't seem like it would take much talent or creativity or be a very good use of Eddie's considerable skills.

Let's just take Olivia back to her apartment when every evil agency in the world knows she's worth 2 billion dollars. How does the show even work going forward? Your main character has a huge target on her head and a bunch of evil people know exactly who she is and where she lives and what she's worth to the most powerful man in the world! It's lovely that Fitz's primary concern was whether or not Olivia was raped. That's important of course but his earnest "Did they hurt you?" came across so skeevy. no dude, no one tarnished your precious sidepiece, in a few months (weeks, days, hours, who knows with these two?) she'll let you hit that and the world will be palatable once again. For you. You worthless piece of shit. I have no idea how they'll have Olivia and Fitz in bed again by the finale (you know that's the plan), what he did is so unconscionable that the idea that Olivia would let this man touch her again is just beyond all logic.

Source

Hot goddamn! Where is the ceiling?? The show is now over 5.1 in the demo and nearly 13 million viewers. It will likely adjust up in the final numbers because there was Idol overrun. I could easily see the show doing better next week after last night's *fantastic* episode.

I saw one article in Entertainment Weekly a week before the premiere but I really don't watch FOX. But I read a ton of entertainment sites and this show really did not receive the type of press you'd expect of such a huge hit. Just my opinion.

There's a thread for this: http://forums.previously.tv/topic/19548-empire-in-the-media-read-it-in-billboard/

Final ratings are in and...the show was adjusted UP. 4.8 demo /11.96 million viewers. Depending on the ratings of this week's Big Bang Theory, Empire is set to be the highest rated network TV show (in the 18-49 demo, BBT will probably have 4-5 million more viewers).

This is so INSANE. For me the best part about this is that I don't think FOX had any idea the monster it had on its hands. The promotion wasn't nearly what one would expect of a show with these kind of ratings. I mean, maybe it's because I watch ABC more but for months I felt inundated with promos for HTGAWM and Blackish. But hardly anything about Empire until right before it aired.

Porsha is awesome, as funny as Cookie is, Porsha is some much welcome comic relief. I had serious issues with Lucious calling her donkey kong or whatever, I don't know if that speaks to the writers ignorance of how dark-skinned black women are largely treated or them being fully aware and them wanting to get across that Lucious is really and truly a dick.

This was by far my favorite episode. I've had issues with the camera work and editing in previous episodes, I'm big on cinematography and editing that completely draws you into a show's world, this was the one aspect of the show I've found lacking. But last night they really took a step forward (it actually started last week but this week took it up a notch). From the way the camera receded from Lucious sitting in his living room with him dead center to the way they had the entire family leaving the Empire offices as Olivia fought with the security guard, they brilliantly hid her from view to save the reveal of not just Olivia and the little girl but also Raven Symone. Despite some questionable things she's said recently I don't think people realize the goodwill Raven Symone has with two generations of people, from The Cosby Show to That's So Raven. 31 year old me and my 17 year old both have a lot of love for her and her acting. Cookie, as always, was played and written brilliantly. TPH and the writers totally get this character, there is no finding a character's voice here, she's been there from jump and I love it. And now they're finally defining the other characters just as well. Jamal wants fame but he doesn't want to be obvious about it, I think most musicians who do it for the love want the same thing but they want to avoid the stigma that comes with "selling out", which is basically doing with you love and getting paid for it. Isn't that what we all want? What is so bad about ambition? It's only bad when you have to sacrifice or hide a part of yourself for it and unfortunately that's what he's doing. I'm interested to see how far down the wormhole he goes. Andre, even on meds, knows what he's capable of. He knows that if he let himself go a few days with his medication he would follow through on his promise to Vernon. Some of the Courtney Love stuff was iffy, it felt superfluous but it gave us Cookie, as well as Cookie and Anika interaction which is always fun. I just don't know how it serviced the overall story.

The show's 18-49 demo went from a 4.4 to a 4.3 between episodes 3 and 4. But viewership has increased every week. It would be a mistake to have this show do a 22 episode season. Hell I think it'd be a mistake to run the season with interruptions. They could do what The Walking Dead does, have a 16 episode season, run 8 episodes in the fall and then 8 more in the winter/spring.

This is CRAZY! Except for that slight (slight!) dip in the demo it's increased every week! And viewership hasn't ebbed at all, consistent growth. What a hit. And word of mouth is phenomenal. Cookie is THE breakout character of the season. Man, I hope this results in an Emmys nomination for Taraji.

It's so weird because I can't recall the last time she played a character who was demonstrably Latino. Of course all of her characters are Latino by virtue of being played by Jennifer Lopez but at the same time they're...white ladies. Basically. I'm trying hard to find the right words here, people. This movie was...not good. She wasn't good in it. Her character had no drive, she was a victim throughout and I really don't think being so docile is her strength. And I hated the kid playing her son, horrible acting. A lot of it didn't make sense, I didn't understand why Claire wrote off Ryan Guzman's character so quickly. He's hot, you're hot, you had good sex and he's legal. Just tell him to go to a different high school. Or get your GED, dude. And at another point Claire breaks into his house while Kristin Chenowith is distracting him after school, why didn't she just go to his house when she knew he'd be in class all day? Why risk him catching her? I'm asking too much of this movie, I know.

The UK FF trailer is out. It looks more promising than the Ant-Man trailer. In fact if this movie were being made BY Marvel I'd be a ton more excited. I hate trailers that tell you essentially nothing but this one tells you nothing in a good way, what I mean is that there is nothing I could see where they colossally fucked up.

Ratings grow yet again. This is reminding me of the mid 2000s, when Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy were growing week to week. Edit: Artsda, you beat me by a minute!

So Murph was 10 when Cooper left, it's been 23 years. That makes Murph 33. And now Murph and Coop are alledgedly the same age. You expect me to believe that Matthew McConaughey is 33 years old? Besides that the movie was complete shite. Visually stunning but the plot was boring and meandering, the dialogue beyond cliche and the soundtrack suffocating. It's like someone saw Gravity and said "Let's make that but with more people and time travel!". Or someone read an awful summary of Contact.

Viola Davis is one of those film actresses that the film business has no idea what to do with. But I can see her excelling on television, she's dynamic and an absolutely force of nature when given the material. And Shondaland gives their actors plenty of meaty material (so what if half of it doesn't make sense and comes about inorganically). I'm positive she'll have a monologue on a weekly basis, perhaps several and I'll be there for each one.