Welcome to CraveOnline's Idiot Box Updates, where we run down all the latest TV news and separate the facts from the rumors and nonsense on and about the small screen. We've got tons of season finales, fall lineups and cancellations to cover, but there's so much worth discussing that those deserve their own pieces entirely. For the time being, here's the highlights and important news for what's happening now in TV land.
1. "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 24.67 million viewers.
2. "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 22.71 million viewers.
3. "Dancing with the Stars," ABC, 18.55 million viewers.
4. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 16.53 million viewers.
5. "The Mentalist," CBS, 16.21 million viewers.
6. "NCIS," CBS, 16.20 million viewers.
7. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 14.81 million viewers.
8. "Dancing with the Stars Results," ABC, 14.06 million viewers.
9. "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 13.96 million viewers.
10. "CSI: Miami," CBS, 13.59 million viewers.
11. "Without a Trace," CBS, 13.4 million viewers.
12. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 13.37 million viewers.
13. "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 13.11 million viewers.
14. "Survivor: Tocantins Finale," CBS, 12.94 million viewers.
15. "CSI: NY" (Special), CBS, 12.77 million viewers.
16. "House," Fox, 12.74 million viewers.
17. "CSI: NY," CBS, 12.33 million viewers.
18. "Survivor: Tocantins," CBS, 12.18 million viewers.
19. "Biggest Loser 7," NBC, 11.85 million viewers.
20. "Survivor: Tocantins Reunion," CBS, 11.59 million viewers.
A "Fringe" firing? It's usually no big deal these days when celebrities use Facebook and Twitter to let their fans know what they're up to, but recently a trend has been rising among stars that borders on self-tabloid: they're bitching.
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The latest to join the ranks of trash talkers Kirk Acevedo, who plays Agent Charlie Francis on Fox's excellent hit series "Fringe". According to a posting on his Facebook, Acevedo posted the following in his Facebook status field, Kanye-style: "WELL BOYS AND GIRLS THEY DONE DID YER BOY WRONG! THEY FIRED ME OFF OF FRINGE,AND I'VE NEVER BEEN FIRED IN MY LIFE!!!!"
Networks are trimming budgets everywhere, and one easy way to cut the fat is to replace better-known actors with lesser-known, more eager ones. Ah well - he always seemed a bit prickish anyway.
Jimmy Kimmel pulled no punches when raking ABC over the coals recently at the ABC upfront with jokes that "so effectively undercut the whole puffed-up affair you wonder if he tells the network in advance what he's going to say."
"Everything you’ve heard today, everything you're going to hear this week," Kimmel told the slack-jawed audience, "is bullshit."
"There is no 'Ad Lab,' " he says, referring to ABC's new advertiser research initiative. "You really think we have a laboratory for ads? And all these shows we're so excited about, we're gonna cancel about 90% of them, maybe more. The show 'Shark Tank' has the word 'tank' right in the title."
"Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more," he says. "Remember when we try to get you to buy bingo on TV? Nobody was going to watch bingo on TV. We lied to you and you passed those lies onto your clients. We knew nobody was going to watch bingo!"
A federal judge has decided that ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich isn't allowed to appear in "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here" in Costa Rica, so his wife will appear instead.
A federal judge barred Blagojevich, who faces federal corruption charges, from being on the NBC show because it would send him out of the country. But his wife, Patti, accepted an offer from the network to appear instead and went to Los Angeles earlier this week to film a promo shoot, according to Glenn Selig, the Blagojevichs' publicist.
The couple appeared on NBC's "Today" show Thursday to announce the move. Patti Blagojevich said she hopes her appearance on the reality series will help show that she isn't the profanity-spewing person portrayed on federal wiretaps.
"I don't think those characterizations were fair at all," she said.
Kris Allen won the eighth season of "American Idol" on Wednesday in an unexpected upset over super-flamboyant singing rival Adam Lambert on the most popular U.S. television show. Do you really need to know any more? Alright fine. Allen, 23, won over audiences with his charm and personal spin on popular tunes.
"It feels good, but Adam deserves this," Allen said to Seacrest. "I don't even know what to feel right now, this is crazy."
A record high of nearly 100 million votes were cast in the finale. Allen's "Idol" win guarantees him a recording contract, for whatever that's worth nowadays.
Christina Applegate's amnesia comedy won't be returning for a third year. Sources said ABC decided to cancel the series after it couldn't reach a cost-cutting deal with corporate sibling ABC Studios, which produces the show.
MSNBC's left-leaning host Keith Olbermann says he'll stop talking about Rush Limbaugh for 30 days — provided that Limbaugh doesn't talk about himself for the same period.
The offer was a response to Limbaugh's challenge that the cable channel not talk about him for a month, since "MSNBC is hoping to build its ratings on my back," the radio talk show host said.
Limbaugh has increased his already high profile as an insistent voice of opposition to the Obama admininstration, said he wanted to see if MSNBC could go on "Rush withdrawal."
"Thirty days without anything mentioning me," Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. "No video of me, no guests commenting on me. See if you can do it. You know, stand on your own two feet. Stand on liberalism. Stand on what you believe. Stop bleeding off me."
Olbermann said Wednesday night that Limbaugh had "suddenly gone all Greta Garbo on us. He wants to be left alone. He has surrendered. Suddenly, the impact of being accurately called out, day after day, hour after hour, as a faux populist, press-release regurgitating lackey of repressive and regressive political flunkeys has hit bone," Olbermann said.
Olbermann said Limbaugh had no business trying to decide how people react to him.
"You built this little world," he said. "Either man up and live through the bad press, or get out.".
"Law & Order" will match "Gunsmoke's" record 20-year run, thanks to NBC's Monday renewal of Dick Wolf's veteran crime drama for a 20th season. Wolf had been vocal about his desire to tie "Gunsmoke" for the longest-running drama series on television.
Once a staple at NBC, the show spawned two successful spin-off series with "Law & Order: SVU" and "Law & Order: CI" It's seen its ratings slide in the past couple seasons, however, when it served as a midseason replacement.
CBS has cancelled long-running military action-drama "The Unit" and veteran crime drama "Without a Trace," while NBC is putting an end to Thursday night comedy sludge "My Name Is Earl" and popular thriller "Medium." The moves come after late-in-the-game saves for relatively new fan favorites like NBC's "Chuck" and Fox's "Dollhouse."
In an unlikely turn of event's, CBS admonished rival NBC for the "Medium" cancellation, saying the following in a statement:
"NBC’s cancellation of MEDIUM is inexplicable to us.
The ratings don’t lie: MEDIUM outperforms many of NBC’s renewed shows.
Despite inconsistent scheduling, MEDIUM, under the creative vision of Glenn Gordon Caron, one of the most preeminent producers in television, has always performed with distinction both creatively and commercially. Multiple award-winning actress Patricia Arquette and the cast have delivered a stellar series for five consistent seasons. The awards and ratings speak for themselves.
We believe the show has a significant future and await developments."
