> Other shows aired last night besides Mad Men. AMC:  Nevertheless, let’s start there.  Early numbers on the MAD MEN premiere give it the show’s biggest audience ever, higher than the season 4 premiere by a factor of over 20%, and with an 18-49 rating of around 1.2 that was 30% higher than last season’s [...]

>AMC’s Walking Dead was clearly the top program on cable last week with Adults 18-49, with the season finale scoring an impressive 4.7 rating, up from a more typical 3.6 last week and beating the season premiere’s 4.2 rating on February 12.  How good is a 4.7 rating?  Just look at the broadcast competition last [...]

> This morning we anticipated that the season finale of THE WALKING DEAD on AMC would outrate anything on network television last night, but that didn’t do justice to Dead‘s accomplishment.  In the finale’s initial airing (it was repeated later in the evening), it broke Dead‘s own record as the highest-rated cable television drama ever, [...]

> The eagerly-awaited Season 5 of the most honored series on television, an interminable 17 months in the making, contents itself with a single enigmatic image:  Don Draper staring into a department store window, his reflected gaze held by two mannequins, one a naked female, her dress at her feet, the other a seated man [...]

> Although cable networks have become much more aggressive with their in-season scripted programming in recent years (Sunday nights this season are at least as much about cable shows as they are broadcast), summer is still when those networks really come out and play.  Today TNT announced the premiere dates for its very busy summer [...]

> HBO has just announced the abrupt end of production on LUCK, which will not be back for the ordered second season.  The announced cause of the cancellation is the recent death of a horse involved with the show, the 3d horse to die in the course of Luck‘s production.  A veterinarian’s statement didn’t suggest [...]

> Showtime has announced that the network’s stalwart WEEDS, now in its 8th season (and, honestly, probably a bit past its prime) and relative newcomer EPISODES will return to the schedule on Sunday July 1, running in the 10-11PM hour.  Weeds is still moderately successful for Showtime, with over 700K total viewers for each episode’s [...]

> The season premiere episode of MAD MEN wasn’t screened at PaleyFest tonight.   Although the show airs a week from Sunday and virtually every other PaleyFest honoree screened an upcoming episode of its series, series creator/showrunner/Keeper Of All Mysteries Matthew Weiner wasn’t about to let the premiere out of his grasp.  In fact, he’d obviously [...]