By Andrew Dalton, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --In its last blast, “The Big Bang Theory” topped the TV ratings by a light-year.
The back-to-back, two-episode finale of the nerdy CBS comedy’s 12-season run drew 18.5 million live viewers Thursday night to easily win the week, the Nielsen company said Tuesday.
Sunday night’s much-ballyhooed finale of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” was a distant second with 13.61 million live viewers.
“Game of Thrones,” however, had a comparable 18.4 million viewers when HBO’s same-night reruns and streaming services are included, making it the most-watched episode of any kind in the history of the cable channel.
Despite mixed fan reaction to the eighth and final “Thrones” season , it was a ratings winner throughout, competing with and usually beating shows that appear in three times more homes. The viewer numbers also grew as the season progressed, with the season premiere setting a record that was topped by three subsequent episodes.
“Big Bang” was a colossal ratings winner that helped keep CBS the top network for much of its record run of 279 episodes, the most ever for a multi-camera series.
Thursday night’s hour-long finale saw the show’s group of geeky misfits take one last trip together to support married couple Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) after they won the Nobel Prize in physics.
A prequel spinoff, “Young Sheldon,” is pulling similar numbers in its second season and will extend the life of the franchise. It finished third in last week’s ratings in a timeslot just after the finale.
“Unraveling the Mystery: A Big Bang Farewell,” a special that aired later the same night, was fourth.
That two-hour “Big Bang” block helped give CBS six of the top 10 shows and an easy win of the week in primetime with an average of 6.5 million viewers. NBC averaged 4.5 million, ABC 3.8 million, Fox 1.9 million, Univision with 1.25 million, ION Television with 1.2 million, Telemundo 1.1 million and the CW 790,000.
ESPN and TNT rode the NBA playoffs to the top two spots among cable networks. ESPN averaged 2.7 million nightly viewers, TNT 2.6 million. Fox News Channel was third with an average of 2.3 million viewers, MSNBC averaged 1.4 million and HGTV averaged 1.1 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” averaged 5.4 million viewers.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 13-19. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 18.5 million.
2. “Game of Thrones,” HBO, 13.61 million.
3. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 13.6 million.
4. “NCIS,” CBS, 11.7 million.
5. “Unraveling the Mystery: A Big Bang Farewell,” CBS, 11.6 million.
6. “American Idol” (Sunday), ABC, 8.7 million.
7. “FBI,” CBS, 8.6 million.
8. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.4 million.
9. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Thursday), ESPN, 8 million.
10. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.98 million.
11. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.96 million.
12. “The Voice,” NBC, 7.7 million.
13. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Tuesday), ESPN, 7.5 million.
14. NBA Playoffs-Conference Finals, Portland at Golden State (Saturday), ESPN, 7.24 million.
15. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.21 million.
16. “Bull,” CBS, 7.2 million.
17. “NCIS: New Orleans,” CBS, 6.9 million.
18. “Chicago PD,” 6.7 million.
19. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 6.6 million.
20. “9-1-1,” Fox, 6.4 million.
ABC and ESPN are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a division of CBS Corp.; Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox; NBC is owned by NBC Universal; Turner is owned by WarnerMedia.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More