Burn Notice

What were Ten thinking putting Modern Family repeats at 8.30pm on a Wednesday? Against one of Seven’s powerhouse imported drama Criminal Minds and Nine’s Farmer Wants a Wife? At the Same time as ABC’1 In Gordon St Tonight?

Especially seeing that these season one episodes of Modern Family are now being played for the third or fourth time.

Even in the younger demos – where Modern Family does well, the Modern Family hour languished third in the timeslot, and overall, the hour didn’t even average 500,000 over the two episodes. Furthermore, it has dragged down Lie to Me figures even further – Lie to Me even at 9.30 can draw overall figures around 700,000 or so.

It’s a shame that they didn’t put more thought into programming for the night as ONE had its best channel share yet for a weeknight that is devoid of any major sporting event. Observational Ice Road Truckers and One at the movies: Hitman helped ONE to a share of 2.3%, just 0.3% behind GEM. Given ELEVEN had a share of 3.8%, and GO! 3.2%, the Ten network’s digital shares in total are actually ahead of Nine’s.

Now that ONE’s non-sport prime time nights are starting to put Ten back into the race in terms of digital channel shares, have hey forgotten about their main channel?

Ten should have tried Lie to Me at 8.30. It’s never going to get the million plus that Criminal Minds does, but the show has achieved figures that high in the past. At the earlier time, Lie to Me could easily pull well over 700,000 which has got to be better than the sub-500,000’s that Modern Family repeats achieve.

I read in TV Week that Ten had no immediate plans to air Burn Notice anytime soon. Shame. Lie to Me at 8.30 and Burn Notice at 9.30 on a Wednesday would go well together – and would do better in the ratings than the current situation. With Lie to Me pulling over 700,000 – or possibly even more – at 8.30, and Burn Notice 500,000 – 600,000 at 9.30, it would put some spark back into Ten’s Wednesday night and prevent them from shares less than half of Seven’s.

I have said it before, and will say it again: Ten should move NCIS: LA to 9.30pm Tuesdays, after NCIS. NCIS: LA is dieing on Sunday nights. Sunday 9.30 could be where Law & Order goes or something similar.

That one simple move could put Ten second to Seven, and ahead of Nine on Tuesday nights- at the moment, Ten are a shade behind Nine – on the night that Nine has its biggest problems also using sitcom repeats to plug a timeslot hole, when they should be airing Survivor Redemption Island.

Ten could be holding off until Masterchef to hit us with their best programming – but given Masterchef is still at least six weeks away, can the network survive until then with such low nightly shares?

Top Gear targets the Welsh

Several weeks after labelling Mexicans “lazy, feckless, flatulent and overweight”, the presenters of Top Gear have offended another nationality. The Welsh are upset over certain comments on a recent episode where they remark that fast cars should be tested on Welsh roads “because no-one wants to live there.”

Miley Cyrus to host SNL

Miley Cyrus will guest host Saturday Night Live for the first time early next month. The teen actress and singer will take the reins of the comedy sketch show for the March 5 episode in the US.

Transformers actor lands Charlie’s Angels role

Transformers actor Ramon Rodriquez has joined the cast of the new Charlie’s Angels reboot. The actor, who featured alongside Shia LaBeouf in the second Transformers film, will play the role of Bosley in the pilot.

Burn Notice prequel given release date

A release date has been set for the Burn Notice prequel film, which will follow series star Bruce Campbell’s former-Navy Seal Sam Axe over the course of his final mission. The prequel will screen in the US in April.

9.30pm Thursday, November 18 on Ten

People want a lot from Michael Westen these days. First, Jesse has found out that Michael was the one that burned him and wants him dead, Vaughn wants in on the action with John Bar- rett, Barrett wants the bible, and to add to it all, a lawyer wants his help rescuing his kidnapped daughter.

This week Michael is asked to help rescue a kidnapped five year old – her father is a defense law- yer for a bad guy whose case is not going well. The bad guy’s brother kidnaps the girl and will kill her if his brother is convicted.

9.30pm Thursday, November 11 on Ten

In this episode, everyone is, as usual, working on different cases. First off Fiona comes to the aid of a grieving woman who had her entire life savings snatched from her by a sleazy womaniser. It’s a job tailor made for Sam, so he helps her to get the sleazebag back. Every plan they have blows up in their face until finally they resort to drugging him (twice) to make him black out and think that he’s killed the woman whose money he stole. Then Michael steps in as a “dirty cop” and claims he can make it all go away… but can he really?

Meanwhile, Michael and Jesse are after the man who wants Simon’s bible. Sam has a friend make up a fake file on the guy so they can fool Jesse into thinking he’s the reason he got burned. They are trying to help Jesse but have to resort to lying to him in order to do it.

9.30pm Thursday, November 4 on Ten

Sam’s friend in prison Juan, has created an enemy out of gang leader Cruz and his life is now in jeopardy.

Sam’s Plan A, to break into the prison, is aborted quickly because the gang members will recog- nise him. Plan B, in which Michael goes in instead and runs interference for Juan long enough to keep him alive until the guards come to the rescue, proves equally flawed when the guards turn out to be on the take. Plan C, to bust Juan out with a week left on his sentence, goes afoul when Cruz breaks Juan’s leg so he can’t run. So as usual it’s Plan D, in which Cruz is smuggled out, only to be immediately recaptured. And presumably killed by other gang members.

In long-term arc news, Michael gets his meeting with Simon, who directs him to a stash of mate- rials hidden in a cemetery plot. Since Michael’s in stir for most of the episode, it’s left to Fi to dig it up and disarm the booby trap, with assists from Sam and Madeline.

Ten programming gets a bit of a shake up in the second last week of the 2010 ratings survey with the Junior Masterchef finale over two hours on Monday November 15, Glee off for a week due to pre-emptions in the US, and Bondi Vet concluding that week as well.

All new Simpsons continues with the latest season – season 22 on Friday nights, while Raising Hope premieres on Wednesday night of that week. There is also a bonus episode of Modern Family on the Wednesday night – being the Halloween special for 2010 – a few weeks late is better than not being on until 2011!

Here’s the summary.

Sunday November 14
7.00 New Modern Family, S2E5 Unplugged
7.30 Junior Masterchef – the four finalists battle to see which two will go to the grand final.
9.30 Offspring, S1E11 The Confession…

Monday November 15
7.30 Junior Masterchef finale over two hours
9.30 Undercover Boss Australia, S1E5 Toga Hospitality

Tuesday November 16
7.30 Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation – second last episode for 2010
8.30 NCIS S8E5 Dead Air
9.30 Good News Week. Moved from Monday as a result of the Junior Masterchef finale running over 2 hours

Wednesday November 17
7.30 Modern Family, S2E6 Halloween
8.00 Raising Hope Pilot, Premiere. More details here.
8.30 The Good Wife S2E5 VIP Treatment
9.30 House S7E7 A Pox in our House

Thursday November 18
7.30 Bondi Vet Season Finale
8.00 Keeping up with the Joneses
8.30 Rush S3E17
9.30 Burn Notice S4E12 Guilt as Charged (and Prize Give Away) – Mid season finale.

Friday November 19
7.30 New Simpsons S22E2 Loan-A-Lisa, guest star is Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg
8.00 New Simpsons S22E3 Money Bart
8.30 NCIS repeat S4E21 Brothers in Arms
9.30 Law and Order SVU repeat S10E15 Lead

9.30pm Thursday, September 29 on Ten

In this week’s episode of Burn Notice, a couple of the “background” characters get to be more centre stage. First off there’s Madeline, who’s enjoying hav- ing Jesse around the house, and also getting to the bottom of who he is and why he’s in Michael’s life.

Then there’s Sam. Usually Sam is backup for Michael or Fi, always there when they need him – playing wacky undercover guys to keep the baddies distracted, sitting on a rooftop with a long range rifle ready to put a bullet in anyone who threatens them, or sitting in a hot car listening to endless hours of boring conversations on bugs that he’s planted. This week though, Sam has to basically run an op himself, with everyone else on the team as backup for him.

9.30pm Thursday, September 23 on Ten

BURT REYNOLDS guest stars in this episode!

Jesse’s casually stalking his old boss at a spy convention, hoping to a) find out more about that bank robbery lead that Kendra gave them last week and b) maybe get his job back.

Obviously b) isn’t going to happen, and while trying to help Jesse accomplish a), Michael spots a Russian black ops team and gets real curious about what they’re in town for. Turns out they’re here to kill a former spy played by Burt Reynolds.

9.30pm Thursday, September 16 on Ten

Aussie ALAN DALE guest stars in tonight’s episode!

Tonight’s main plot stems from a client calling Michael and Fiona in to help him catch an art thief. Said art thief, Mr. Slippery, has been so good at evading authorities that basically no good information exists about him.

There’s no picture of him, and, as you may have noticed, no one has a name for him either. He’s just Mr. Slippery, and to catch him, Michael and Fiona are going to have to start at square one. That means going to the local museum, where Ken Bocklage (Alan Dale) has to be convinced that his priceless ancient sword is in danger of being stolen and replaced with a fake.

Naturally, this means Michael and Fiona have to go through a series of elaborate ruses to get him to agree, then have to uncover Mr. Slippery’s plot, then have to catch Mr. Slippery.