It's coming to Netflix in the fall (if you're in the U.S.) so then you can just watch 'em all in order like you're supposed to.

One of the most misleading spoken-word intros ever! Or at least the first sentence is. They promise you a "shadowy flight" and then give you the sunny smiling Hasselhoff, who seems altogether too existent. And in sunny smiley southern Cali, no less. If I stumble across a rerun, I'm like, "Where's the fucking shadows…

I agree that this was a real problem for the show. It leaned too heavily on that quasi-folksy tone. But I figured I'd give Whedon the benefit of the doubt and I was glad that I did. After a while I was able to easily ignore the shoehorned-in western trappings.

Um, the writing was also horrible. That MAY just have been an issue. When even McKellen can't liven up his scenes because the writing is so lousy, you've got a real problem. They could've put a super-charismatic guy in Caveziel's place and it wouldn't have helped. (Conversely, Person of Interest is so good it can be…

Burn Notice! That was one of the most unnecessary and wordy ones in modern times. They didn't really need an intro at all, especially not after season 1, since the show didn't have the faintest idea how to do a story arc anyway; cases of the week was all it was good at, and those are pretty much all self-explanatory.…

Hmm, interesting idea. I figured they just wanted to keep it as a bridge show so they can continue smart split-season scheduling. Do we know how many episodes they've ordered? It's a musical, so that might limit the number they can churn out each season. I imagine it's just another eight episodes, or maybe ten.

Wow, really? That's peculiar. It's filmed in Bristol. I wonder if there are any other shows filmed there that aren't broadcast there. Weird.

They record all sorts of demographics, including 18-34, 25-54, 35-64, 18-24, 12-24, 2-17, etc. etc. etc. etc. but most of them are not reported to us. The advertisers and networks pay Nielsen for very detailed info on these demos, and get exclusive access. Very little of it is released to the public.

The boxes cannot tell which persons of which demographics are in the room watching what's broadcasting at any given time. And consumers don't want them to. You can yell "Facebook" all you want but that doesn't change that fact. Also, many boxes cannot even tell whether or not the TV is on.

I liked Freaks & Geeks but it was a very depressing show compared to most of the stuff on the air back then. It was (partly) about nerds before nerds were cool. You may forget, but nerds were once anathema in our culture. The show was ahead of its time. I was surprised its ratings weren't LOWER than they were. As for…

Depends on how heavy you like your serious drama. I watched the first two episodes — it's well-made and unique, but it's very very dark, not particularly subtle, heavier than a ton of bricks, and humorless. Not that I dislike humorless shows as a whole, but this was too much for me to handle. That might be more of an…

Is it cheap due to a co-production deal with a UK network maybe? It's filmed over there.

But if that's the case (and it very well may be), then the results mostly likely skew TOWARDS passionate and obsessive TV viewers like us, not towards average viewers who don't care that much and just put any old junk on in the background.

Tripled? According to whom? Evidence, please. And not just from Yahoo! which has a clear bias and good reasons to lie about these things. (To be clear, I like Community and Other Space and I wish them well, but I'm trying to be realistic and unbiased here. I like truth in my ratings, as painful as it can be.)

Who cares what *I* think? THEY think so.

Blame the advertisers for that, not the networks or Nielsen. The advertisers are the ones who insist that older folks rarely change brands or try new things. They're paying for the shows and they're in control, not Nielsen. Nielsen in just the messenger.

Bummer! I could've sworn I read they made it in Michigan but now I see you're right. Must've been getting it confused with Low Winter Sun (an even worse show) and Detroit 1-8-7. Cali seems to be stealing back a lot of shows lately (finally competing in tax incentives?). Urgh.

"Don't let the tv shows I used as an example distract from my point." HUH? Using poor examples in any argument is always a sign of blinkered thinking. P&R or 30 Rock were "probably some of the biggest shows of all time"? Ha ha ha ha ha! You're hilarious.

Actually, sweeps months seem to have declined somewhat in importance. Most season finales used to air on the LAST week of May sweeps; now the networks often sort of shrug at May and end their shows only one or two weeks into May sweeps. I haven't seen any huge guest stars during sweeps lately, either. Remember when…

Ha ha, good old-fashioned "seemingly at random" CBS scheduling. I thought I was used to it, being old enough to have watched shows on CBS since the mid-80s, when that was the standard, but the advent of streaming services has made me more impatient, and the sharp decline in rerun ratings even for CBS's procedurals…