TV News
This past week’s Presidential election has been the most interesting thing
on television since the last episode of The West Wing. I don't know about
you, but for the first time in my life, I actually care about politics. Maybe
Aaron Sorkin convinced me, but I was glued to the TV all night. My favorite part
was watching all the anchors grow sleepy and tired as the election drama
unfolded.
Just in case you passed up the channel flipping excitement of all the news
channels in order to watch The Real World’s season finale, here's the
rundown: NBC had the highest ratings that night thanks to Tim Russert's
"white board" analysis. The anchor drew the calculations on a dry
erase board as opposed to the computers being used on the other networks; ABC
featured Peter Jennings reporting from Times Square. In my opinion, having a
window that looks onto Manhattan behind him was rather distracting; CBS' Dan
Rather, looking very sedated, sat on his butt all night in front of a huge
American flag backdrop and said lots of silly things; and the best coverage by
far was provided by CNN. CNN showed all four political analysts sitting at a
desk, with the newsroom in the backdrop. They came up with the most accurate
figures, and their anchors seemed to have the most endurance out of anyone.
I spent the whole night pining for Jon Stewart. Since I am a prisoner to a
sucky campus cable system, I don't get Comedy Central. I heard that the
hilarious Stewart had the most entertaining coverage of anyone. I have the
biggest crush on him and can laugh at anything he says.
In the ratings for the week ending October 29, Frasier enjoyed success
in the number one spot, beating out new episodes of both ER and Friends,
and surpassing the rest of NBC’s usually unbeatable Thursday night. Other
usual top ten residents were put on hold for the MLB World Series. Of course, Millionaire
managed to slide into the top five.
For the week of Oct 30-Nov 5, the world returns to normal as ER was
back on top with Friends trailing close behind. However, it looks like
NBC’s Thursday night has some competition - Everybody Loves Raymond has
been consistently in the top five since the beginning of the season. NBC’s
Thursday addition, Cursed, barely graced the number ten slot. Filling in
the spaces were Monday Night Football, Millionaire, and Will and Grace
at number 6. It looks like that 9 pm slot isn’t doing as well for them as they
thought…
My suggestion??? Move Will and Grace to 8:30 (after Friends),
get rid of Cursed (have you seen it? I’d rather sit through two
episodes of Jesse than five minutes of Cursed), and put Frasier
back on at 9. This way, NBC would really have a powerful Thursday night lineup,
and Will and Grace doesn’t lose the audience from their Friends
lead in. Then, NBC can finally take back Thursday night. The other option would
be to bring back Seinfeld. I’m also thinking that by next season, The
West Wing is going to take over ER’s time slot. Discuss.
