Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Three minutes, 26 seconds.
That's how long Cirque du Soleil got to interpret the moviegoing experience for an audience of millions of people who, we presume, have at least a passing interest in film, since they've stuck with the Oscars this long tonight.
How long did supporting actress winner Octavia Spencer of "The Help" get for what host Billy Crystal called a "moment [that is]...what the Oscars are all about?
According to my colleague Molly Eichel, who's running a stop-watch tonight, it was 46.81 seconds.
Sure, there's no way of predicting moments and God forbid the Oscars should someday end a few minutes early. Thus the useless production numbers.
Still, if there's anything we take away from this most bloated of awards shows, it's usually something said or done by a person who's just won the biggest award of his or her career. And rushing that person off stage just so we can be reminded yet again why going to the movies is such a special thing makes no sense at all.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
If Billy Crystal's ninth outing as Oscar host ("just call me 'War Horse'") got off to a not terribly exciting start, he has no one to blame but Billy Crystal.
And, OK, the nine -- count 'em, nine -- Best Picture nominees, which made his traditional musical medley more of a long-distance obstacle course than ever.
Crystal, whose Oscar record has made life difficult for every other host in recent memory, is now in competition against only himself.
He's stuck with that medley, I'm afraid, though his true strength as a host tends to come through in the less-scripted moments -- the Jack Palance updates, for instance -- and we're not far enough into the show to have seen those yet.
But I'm betting that if Sacha Baron Cohen had dumped ashes all over Crystal instead of Ryan Seacrest, he'd have found a way to spin them into gold.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
HBO does not want "Game of Thrones" fans to forget that the show is returning April 1.
As if they could.
Following last week's photos from the new season, the network's now released another teaser, behind-the-scenes video extolling the virtues of Iceland, which, it turns out, is what's beyond that humongous wall George R.R. Martin constructed around his imaginary kingdom.
It looks beautiful. And cold. Very, very cold.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
As massive as the ratings were for CBS’ Whitney Houston tribute-filled Grammycast Sunday -- watched by an average 39.9 million viewers -- the annual awards show didn’t stop the zombies.
AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” returning from its long Season 2 holiday break, drew a record 8.1 million viewers at 9 p.m. and with its 11 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. encores, totaled 10.1 million for the night.
Some 5.4 million of those 9 p.m. viewers were the 18- to 49-year-olds advertisers target.
That’s more in both cases than last fall’s season premiere, which had already set basic-cable records for a drama.
The premiere of Kevin Smith’s “reality” show, “Comic Book Men,” meanwhile, averaged 2 million viewers at 10 p.m.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
A Grammy Awards show fueled by tributes to Whitney Houston drew monster ratings Sunday night, with CBS, citing preliminary Nielsens reporting the largest audience for the show since 1984 and the second-highest viewership for the show ever. (According to Entertainment Weekly, that's a 44 percent increase from last year.)
The network said that preliminary reports indicated that the show drew more than 39 million viewers between 8 and 11 p.m.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Could Roseanne Barr and John Goodman strike gold twice?
Deadline.com is reporting that Goodman's in "final negotiations" to join his former "Roseanne" co-star's new pilot, "Downwardly Mobile," in which Roseanne would run a mobile home park and Goodman would play someone who works there and has "a buddy relationship" with her.
The show's said to be the creation of its star, her boyfriend John Argent and former "Roseanne" exec producer Eric Gilliland. Given that Argent's IMDB.com listing seems to consist of credits involving his playing himself or otherwise working on shows with Roseanne, this sounds like a potential nightmare behind the scenes.
But it would be good to see Roseanne back onscreen with the one guy whose marriage to her -- however fictional -- actually seemed to work.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
HBO's "Game of Thrones" won't return until April 1, but the network yesterday released these images from Season 2, including some of characters from the George R.R. Martin saga that we haven't yet seen on film.
What do you think?
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
It's official: The doctor is out.
Fox's "House," starring Hugh Laurie as the acerbic, pain-ridden diagnostician Dr. Gregory House, will wrap up its practice this spring after eight seasons of strange and not-so-wonderful mysteries and maladies.
"The decision to end the show now, or ever, is a painful one, as it risks putting asunder hundreds of close friendships that have developed over the last eight years -- but also because the show itself has been a source of great pride to everyone involved," said a statement released by Fox Wednesday evening that was credited to Laurie as well as to his fellow executive producers, David Shore and Katie Jacobs.
"Since it began, 'House' has aspired to offer a coherent and satisfying world in which everlasting human questions of ethics and emotion, logic and truth, could be examined, played out, and occasionally answered. This sounds like fancy talk, but it really isn't. 'House' has, in its time, intrigued audiences around the world in vast numbers, and has shown that there is a strong appetite for television drama that relies on more than prettiness and gun play."
To that, I'd only add (for now) that in a medium too preoccupied by "Jersey Shore" and "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," "House," which was set at a fictional hospital in the Garden State, at least gave the impression that not everyone in New Jersey is a complete idiot.
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
NBC finally has a smash hit on its hands.
And it’s called “The Voice.”
Oh, “Smash,” the making-of-a-Broadway-musical show that many critics (including this one) loved and that NBC made the focus of a saturation ad campaign, did better than most things on the network, with some 11.5 million viewers in the preliminary Nielsens.
It easily won the 10 p.m. hour Monday in total viewers and among the 18- to 49-year-olds advertisers target.
But “The Voice,” coming off a post-Super Bowl showcase, managed to hold on to an average audience of nearly 17.7 million viewers, peaking in its second hour at 19.3 million.
Those are “American Idol” numbers, people. Or at least they used to be.
“Smash,” by contrast, did well, especially in a season where breaking 10 million viewers has become something of a feat, but it not only dropped considerably from its “Voice” lead-in, it continued to drop in the second half-hour, which is why I'm a little worried, even amid reports that this is the third-highest-rated premiere for the season.
Could all that singing be putting people to sleep?
Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
Norway’s probably the last place you might expect to find Steve Van Zandt, much less Steve Van Zandt playing a mobster.
But that’s just where the E Street Band member (and former “Sopranos” co-star) turns up in “Lilyhammer,” his new fish-out-of-water dramedy series, which made its debut today on Netflix.
U.S. viewers may feel a bit out of water, too, at first, the Norwegian-made show having helpfully included English subtitles for even the dialogue that’s in English as well as the profanities in Norwegian we might otherwise have failed to notice. (In fact, the descriptive captioning appears to be the type used by the hearing-impaired.)
Van Zandt’s character is in witness protection — in Lillehammer, Norway — under the unlikely name Giovanni (“Call Me Johnny”) Henriksen. The name wasn’t his choice, but the venue was, the town having caught his eye during the 1994 Winter Olympics.
His plan is to open a sports bar, but he quickly encounters the kind of Scandinavian bureaucracy that seems to be the show’s real target.
Johnny’s mobster rules are the very antithesis of a highly regulated state with a strong safety net but seemingly even stronger restraints on free thinkers.
Or so “Lilyhammer” suggests, depicting the culturally insensitive mobster as just the kind of man of action his new community seems to need, more like Clint Eastwood in snowshoes than Silvio Dante.
I have to wonder what the Norwegians thought about all this.
The entire eight-episode season -- each runs about 47 minutes -- is currently available for instant streaming on Netflix, which is trying every thing it can think of to convince subscribers to stay put (next week, Hulu adds an original political comedy, ‘Battleground,” to its lineup).
From what I’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t say “Lilyhammer” is worth signing up for Netflix to see, but if you’re already paying for it and you like Van Zandt — and Norwegian knits — it’s certainly worth a look.
