The Miami Heat didn't just dominate the second half of the NBA Finals last night, Game 4 of this back-and-forth series dominated the Thursday night television ratings.

Scroll down for a breakdown, which includes low numbers for Hannibal and an easy victory for ABC...

8 p.m.
The Big Bang Theory rerun: 8.3 million/Two and a Half Men rerun: 6.3 million
Hell's Kitchen: 5 million
Save Me rerun: 2.4 million/Save Me: 2.2 million
The Vampire Diaries rerun: 870,000

9 p.m.
NBA Finals: 14.1 million
Person of Interest rerun: 6.5 million
Does Someone Have To Go?: 2.4 million
The Office rerun: 1.5 million/Parks and Recreation rerun: 1.5 million
Beauty and the Beast rerun: 630,000

10 p.m.
Elementary rerun: 5.6 million
Hannibal: 2 million

Source:
http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/06/tv-ratings-report-nba-finals-heat-up/

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

I’m Amanda Clarke.

Yep, Emily Thorne finally said those words to Jack Porter to close out Revenge Season 2. So, as we bide our time this summer waiting for new episodes, what could possibly come next?

Leave it to Nick Wechsler (Jack) to shed some light on the question (and a few others) when we hung out at the ATX Television Festival this past weekend in Austin. Though they haven’t started shooting the new season yet, Wechsler had some theories and desires for how Jack should handle this shocking news, as well as what other TV show the actor would love to appear on...

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TV Fanatic: Where do you think we’ll find Jack mentally? Between his brother’s death and Emily dropping the bomb about being Amanda, what would you want for him?
Nick Wechsler: I would like for him to believe her. I would like for him to...basically, he has to go after Conrad Grayson now…but for him to maybe finally accept Emily, through seeing what it's done to Jack…this might actually be more interesting, if it took seeing Jack go down this dark revenge road to make her rethink her own revenge.

TVF: I actually hadn't thought about that. On the flip side of that is Emily and Jack teaming up in a way because they both have their issues with the Graysons.
NW: It's interesting because I think that would be a way for it to go because through this I think he's going to resent her. As much as it's like ‘oh my God, you've just revealed to me that you are…this explains the connection I've had to you all along, you are the girl that I've been in love with, but I'm also hurt that you've been lying and that you set up a sequence of events that led to me losing someone I thought was you, I thought was the love of my life.’

TVF: Because he truly fell in love with Amanda.
NW: Exactly. ‘So whether or not she was you, I ended up falling in love with whoever she was.’ So he's going to be upset with her but at the same time it has the potential to put him in her shoes. So it's like, wow, the reason he comes around to forgiving her [and] he's going to have to start Trojan-Horsing his way in. He's going to have to start lying to people to get some of this information out to try to take [the Graysons] down. So yeah. It's both the thing that's going to push her away, and the thing that's probably ultimately going to make him forgive her.

TVF: A therapist would make really good money living in The Hamptons, don’t ya think?
NW: Jack can't afford it, but yeah.

TVF: How do you feel like your life's changed in the last two years? Do you get recognized more? Is fame something different to deal with?
NW: I get recognized more, but it's never a problem. Everybody's really respectful and everything. I just went to Bali for 15 percent work and 85 percent play and it was amazing. But Australia is around the corner and [the show is] doing very well in Australia, so I got stopped a lot there. Recognizing someone from something they watch is rarer there so I got stopped more frequently.

Like in LA, I don’t get stopped nearly as much as I get stopped here in Austin or over there. As long as people aren't asking for too much or anything, like too much of your time or anything or whatever, but no, my life is no different, really. I still haven't bought a new car and I drive a 13-year-old piece of shit.

TVF: Do they make fun of you when you drive your car on the lot to shoot the show?
NW: Behind my back, I'm sure. I'm sure I'm paying less in rent than everyone in the cast. I didn't move. I mean, these are things I'm eventually going to change. Obviously, I'm going to get a new car, I'll probably move or whatever, but it hasn't changed my life. It's changed my opportunities.

TVF: Where do you see your career going beyond this show? Do you see more drama? Comedy?
NW: What means more to me is comedy just because that's what got me started acting. That's my favorite thing to do, is just sit around and riff with my friends, and make people laugh, and play ridiculous characters. Just talk as a character to my friend and we just keep doing this back and forth and it's got to be awful for girlfriends to sit through.

But I think I'm almost better suited to drama. Like whatever my thing is. And it's actually frustrating. It's like a part of me is jealous of the dramatic part of me because the dramatic part is getting a lot more attention. I'm not even sure I'm that good at [comedy] anymore because I haven't had many opportunities.

TVF: Okay, so you have your two and a half months off. You can go work on any show, like a guest spot or something. Do you have a show that's on the air now that you’d love to do?
NW: I've already done something on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia but I think that show is so brilliant. I wish I could keep coming back as different characters. I love that show.

TVF: And they do a lot of improving stuff, right? Like they don’t keep tight to the script if I remember right, talking to them.
NW: Yeah, which is my kind of thing. But, also, just based on the strength of the first season because it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, Eastbound and Down…I'd be honored to have had anything to do with their fourth and final season. That would be amazing.

Source:
http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/06/revenge-season-3-qanda-how-will-jack-react/

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

While I was busy at the second annual ATX Television Festival in Austin last weekend, I managed to sit down with the folks making some of your favorite TV shows, gathering up scoop on their programs and, in the case of one actor, learning of his summer hiatus plans.

So this week’s Notebook gets emptied out with bits from Scandal’s gay couple, a Royal Pains pregnancy and what Hart of Dixie’s Wilson Bethel is up to over the next couple months...

SCANDAL When it comes to playing the heightened drama on ABC’s hit series, Dan Bucatinsky (James) said that he can relate to a lot of the issues that plague his character and his partner Cyrus (Jeff Perry). “I live it every single day,” he said after the ATX panel for the show. “I'm a passionate father of my two kids and a passionate writer, performer, actor, and producer. And that tension between wanting both things so desperately is something that lives in James.”

Bucatinsky’s real-life partner is acclaimed writer/director Don Roos.

The actor, who is busy with Web Therapy on Showtime, Who Do You Think You Are on TLC (both of which he does with BFF Lisa Kudrow) and his writing gig on Grey’s Anatomy, added of what he’d like to see on Scandal Season 3: “I think it would be really interesting to see life at home challenge James and Cyrus while career is starting to explode I think that would be an interesting place to go, but there's no telling.”

ROYAL PAINS The jaw-dropping moment in this week’s Royal Pains Season 5 is that Divya is pregnant. Because she’s not a mother yet in real life, actress Reshma Shetty told me that she chatted with some people close to her – literally. “My next-door neighbor has two kids,” she said so she was able to ask “in that period of time what happened to you? What happened to your body? How did you feel?” For her character, who usually does her best to keep her life in order, Shetty said, “this is the last thing that could possibly happen to her in her mind.”

And while the predictable thing to do would be to bring in Divya’s ultra-strict parents, Executive Producer Michael Rauch told me that he and his creative team took a different route. “What the writers do is send these conflicts back into the family unit, which is HankMed,” he said. “So, it will provide great conflict and issues to come up in season five with how we take care of her. So, rather than seeing it play out in Divya’s family, we get to see it play out in the HankMed family.”

WILSON BETHEL is using his Hart of Dixie hiatus keeping busy, but did doing improv on the CW’s revival of Whose Line Is It Anyway come easily for him? “I'm a bit of a loose cannon anyway so just being ridiculous in  the moment comes pretty natural to me but improv is scary as shit, man,” he told me in Austin last weekend. He said that working with seasoned improv talents (and host Aisha Tyler from Archer) made the experience easier. (The series kicks off July 16).

And for those who loved his Stupid Hype web series, Bethel is working on another one for The CW.  “It’s a new series called LA Rangers,” he said, “where me and my creative partner play Los Angeles park rangers in Griffith Park who are aspiring filmmakers. So we are in preproduction stages right now and we'll shoot that next month before going back to Hart of Dixie.” (More from my chat with Bethel about his hopes for Season 3 of Hart of Dixie coming next week on TV Fanatic.)

That’s a wrap for this week! Anything else you’re dying to know about your favorite show? Leave a comment here or you email me directly at jim@jimhalterman.com. And remember: follow @TVFanatic for all your TV scoop!

Source:
http://www.tvfanatic.com/2013/06/jims-notebook-scandal-royal-pains-and-wilson-bethel/

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith