This Monday Mr. Leno again hit just a 1.2 national rating– his lowest number to date — in the 18-49 year-old age group, which NBC uses to define success because of the number of advertisers who want to reach that group. He did, however, increase his total audience a bit from last Monday, when he faced both football and the World Series. This Monday he had 4.07 million viewers; a week before he had 3.92 million.

The 1.2 was the same number Mr. Leno hit last Monday, and it is well below the modest 1.5 rating that NBC set as the bar to call the show a financial success. Mr. Leno, who dominated the ratings when he hosted ‘The Tonight Show,’ has struggled, especially in recent weeks as post-season baseball games have dotted many nights of the prime-time schedule.

Oh heck yeah. Glad to see History Channel showing some history for a change.

The question of the most popular sport on television has been long answered, but football put an exclamation point on it Sunday when a regular season N.F.L. game was far more watched than Game 4 of the World Series.

Both events had huge audiences, but the game between the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings, featuring the return of Brett Favre to Green Bay, was watched by an average of 29.8 million viewers — considerably more than the 22.3 million viewers who turned up for the Yankees’ win over the Phillies in the World Series.

Football showed its true power in the prime-time portion that ran after 7 p.m. That part of the game drew 39 million viewers, a figure on par with most playoff games.

Unless you’re a dedicated fan of Battlestar Galactica (as I am) avoid Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. If you are a fan, you’ll probably like it. The basic premise is to show us what was going on on the Cylon side during the series as they attempted to execute their “plan”.

My favorite “and they have a plan” intro.

The narrative is kind of odd, because it literally shows you what was happening in the other room as the series was marching on. It’s a neat idea, if a little disjointed. There aren’t any really big reveals and I personally will never change my mind that all those toasters should have been fried, but it was fun to go back to that world for a bit.

I would watch a lot more sci-fi if it was as gritty and not obsessed with its mythology like BSG was.

And now a picture of Tricia Helfer, the best cylon ever:

At the same time Mr. Letterman’s longtime rival, Jay Leno, experienced a somewhat predictable falloff with his new prime-time show now that he is facing full competition. Mr. Leno finished third at 10 p.m., well behind the CBS hit drama ‘C.S.I. Miami’ and the far-from-hit ABC drama, ‘Castle.’

Mr. Leno had 5.67 million viewers, his lowest total so far. (He had 18.1 million for his first show last Monday.) ‘Miami’ had 13.73 million (down 17 per cent from last year) and ‘Castle’ had 9.43 million.

Mr. Leno also dropped sharply in the 18-49 audience NBC cares most about, to a 1.8 rating. (‘Miami’ had a 4.3 and ‘Castle’ a 2.3.) NBC has maintained that any number above a 1.5 will be more than enough to produce big profits because of the lower cost of Mr. Leno’s show compared with expensive scripted dramas.

Based on his current trajectory, Leno may turn out to be the XFL of talk shows.

‘Leno’: Averaged a 2.7/8 in the demo and 8. 5 million viewers, according to prelim national Nielsen data. Smallest audience in four broadcasts. Won the hour in adults 18-49 but lost to a repeat of ‘The Mentalist’ on CBS in viewers. This was the first night this week where Leno’s lead-in wasn’t a special but regular NBC programming.

I believe next week the season begins in earnest and CBS and ABC will have new programming on at 10 vs Leno.

Television is in one of its dry spots right now. For myself, there are only a few programs being shown on broadcast that I watch regularly. Why? Because broadcast TV thinks you’re stupid and is jammed to the gills with idiotic reality shows. Even in the time-honored procedural category, the pickings have been come slim as of late.

And now NBC has decided to inflict Jay Leno on the public in prime time. I hope they stay away. Not only has Leno been amazingly ungracious towards Conan O’Brien taking over the Tonight Show (then again, this was the guy who ignored Carson after he took over Tonight himself), Leno happens to have not been even sort of funny since the 20th century. That’s the rub. NBC is stripping a talk show by a has-been comedian across prime time (where I hope to God he gets slaughtered in the ratings) and that’s the future of TV?

Ugh.

1. The rally will be poorly attended.

2. CBS will not fire David Letterman. Letterman is worth millions, probably billions to CBS. While TV networks don’t like cranky pants protestors outside, what they like more than that is MONEY.

* Hate how the whole Sawyer-Jack conflict was solved in like 5 minutes. And somehow Sayid who was bleeding out before it even began is still ticking.

* Jacob struck me as kinda pervy the way he stalked everyone

* Did Jacob bring Locke back to life when he fell out the window? Looked like it.

* So was Jacob’s buddy in the reanimated body of Locke? Is Locke actually really dead?

* I liked how Bernard and his wife were just like, we don’t care about you guys and the trauma du jour.

* Also enjoy how Ben Linus is totally unable to manipulate things for a change

“Torchwood: If it’s moving, we’re totally having sex with it”

Tabloid rumors likely helped Lifetime’s presentation of “Nora Roberts’ Northern Lights,” which became the network’s most-watched movie so far this year.

“Lights” was seen by 4.5 million viewers on Saturday night, topping Lifetime’s list of 2009 movie premiere ratings. The project stars LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, who supposedly had an affair during the shoot.

If the whole thing – alleging an affair between Rimes and her co-star – was a set-up to get ratings for a soapy TV movie, my hat is off to them for using the tabloids like they were used back in the Confidential days by the studios and press agents.

SPOILERS
So what did you guys think? I enjoyed it, I think. I confess I had a feeling that what happened would happen – Galactica being the spark that helped civilize earth. But the way they did it was pretty cool. I don’t know if I buy Cavil being talked down so easily, it kind of went against his character’s grain.

I also wonder if the “And they have a plan” from the first few seasons can really be stretched into this being what the Cylons – at least some of them – had in mind all along. And if so, I guess it was God’s will that the 12 colonies were nuked?

I could have done without Adama’s puking scene. It served the plot but I dunno if I buy everyone going “Yeah, let’s ditch our space junk and just live in the wild on an unknown planet”.

At the end of the day I think my favorite character turned out to be Baltar. I still think he’s a weasel though.