Source: HitFix

“The Middle” (8:30-9:00 p.m.)
Returning to original for the first time in 3 weeks, ABC’s “The Middle” ranked as the No. 1 scripted show at 8:30 p.m. in Adults 18-49 (2.1/6), defeating the second half-hour of NBC’s “Mercy” by 24% (1.7/5) and CBS’ “Gary Unmarried” by 5% (2.0/5).

Source: RBR

Building on its lead-in at 8:30 p.m. (+13%), ABC’s “The Middle” (2.7/8) finished as the No. 1 regular program in its half-hour among Adults 18-49, beating the second half-hour of Fox’s “Human Target” premiere by 8% (2.5/7) and NBC’s “Mercy” by 69% (1.6/5).

“The Middle” achieved series-high numbers among Adults 18-49 and across each of the key Women demos (W18-34/W18-49/W25-54).

Source: The Futon Critic

ABC Repeat Comedies (8:00-9:00 p.m.)
Opposite “American Idol” from 8:00-9:00 p.m., repeats of “Modern Family” and “The Middle” gained Adult 18-49 audience (+6%) for ABC in the hour. In fact ABC was the only broadcaster to grow in the time period.

At 8:30 p.m., a replay ABC’s “The Middle” defeated NBC’s original Mercy by 21% in Adults 18-49 (1.7/4 vs. 1.4/4). Despite facing “Idol,” “The Middle” posted its second-highest repeat number to date.

Source: RBR

Yet we’re now finishing a television year that has seen both the emergence of ABC’s uproarious “Modern Family” and its less dazzling but wonderfully mordant lead-in, “The Middle,” about another kind of modern family—a brew of consistent charm and character with a bracing hint of nightmarish reality underlying its sitcom fun. Add to these the most unexpected gem of all—NBC’s “Community,” a satire set in the unlikely precincts of a community college. Its creator, Dan Harmon, was, by his own account, inspired by the semester he once spent at one in pursuit of an effort to strengthen ties with his girlfriend. That relationship didn’t work out in the end, but, happily, the same can’t be said of this whip-smart series about an improbably compelling band of adults taking classes at a sunny academic hell called Greendale Community College.

These were comedies that lit out for new territory and that delivered, at least, persuasive approximations thereof. Of none was this truer than that creation of old “Frasier” hands Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, “Modern Family”—a hugely ambitious, hilarious and royally self-assured enterprise involving three family-connected couples. So seductive are each of these portraits, it’s become clear as the series runs on, that the show’s only problem is finding a way to fit all of them, and their delectable situations, into a satisfying share of what is, after all, only a half-hour format.

No such problems confront “The Middle.” The title refers to the setting—the country’s middle—for this series about a family consigned, economically speaking, to life on the margins. Patricia Heaton plays the redoubtable Frankie—Indiana homemaker, auto salesperson still looking for her first car sale, mother of three, wife to the jovial Mike—all of it stellar material for Ms. Heaton, and a vast improvement over her role as the endlessly disaffected wife, and scold, in “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Here she’s a dynamo of enterprise, and fixing, who confronts the hard-pressed life as the norm, serves fast-food dinners on paper plates, and is inspired, regularly, to try something new like getting the family members to eat dinner together around the table instead of in front of their TV sets—a proposal the children consider akin to a violation of natural law. A brash, broadly drawn character, Frankie becomes in Ms. Heaton’s delicately nuanced performance a perfectly credible one—and one with well-honed comedy reflexes, which count heavily here. For, filled as the show is with caustic commentary—one zinger of an episode focused on a bureaucracy prepared to swing into action and, possibly, remove the strange youngest child, Brick (Atticus Shaffer), to a foster home because he’d decided to wrap a bandage around his arm—the series is, in the end, in the business of inducing laughter, which it does with gratifying regularity.

Read the full story on the WSJ.

The next time someone suggests the half-hour sitcom is “dead,” tell them to check out ABC on Wednesday for a glimpse of Modern Family, which I think will give NBC’s overrated 30 Rock a run at the Emmys. Family love and dysfunction have never been this perfectly portrayed, including the comic high point of the series, gay couple Cameron and Mitchell.

As long as you’re watching Modern Family, make it a point to get to ABC at 8:30 p.m. for lead-in The Middle, which is happily reminiscent of recent classic Malcolm in the Middle. Although Patricia Heaton as frustrated mom Frankie is less cantankerous than Jane Kaczmarek as equally frazzled Mom Lois, 11-year-old Atticus Shaffer is the new Dewey. The resemblance is eerie.

Read the rest of the story at Media Week

With its Highest-Ever Repeat Numbers, ABC’s “Modern Family” Retains Nearly All Of its Week-Ago Original Telecast and is No. 2 in its Slot with Key Adults and Men

Similarly to its Lead-in, a Repeat “Cougar Town” Delivers Impressive Retention of Its Week-Earlier Original Airing, Holding 95% in Both Viewers and Adults 18-49

“Eastwick” Jumps Week to Week by 17% in Viewers and by 18% in Adults 18-49

“The Middle” (8:30-9:00 p.m.)

Building on its lead-in at 8:30 p.m. (a “Modern Family” repeat) against holiday specials on NBC (“Christmas in Rockefeller Center”) and CBS (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”) and an original “So You Think You Dance” on Fox, ABC’s “The Middle” was up week to week by 8% in Total Viewers (6.4 million vs. 5.9 million) and by 18% in Adults 18-49 (2.0/6 vs. 1.7/6). The ABC freshman comedy drew more overall viewers than Fox’s veteran “Dance” (6.2 million) and finished No. 2 in its half-hour with Adults 25-54 (2.6/6) and Men 18-49 (1.7/5).

Source: The Futon Critic

[Source: HitFix]

“no door – no food?”

“A dog suit”

[Source: EW]