November sweeps takes place from October 26 through November 22nd.
Back in 1954, Nielsen (who ‘rates’ how many people watch a show) mailed booklets to households across the country and asked them to record everything they watched on TV for a week. Quickly TV shows realized that more viewers equaled higher money for ad-space, and more people watched shows that grabbed headlines. And thus the concept of sweeps weeks were born.
November Sweeps
Technically, Sweeps only includes network TV so, in no particular order …
- American Horror Story killed a bunch of people, but mostly white men (and we’re pretty much okay with that).
- Supergirl broke up Sanvers and brought back Mon-El. No one wanted that. Either of it. Even with Mon-El ‘safely’ married now.
- The Good Doctor killed a guestbian after her wedding (gee thanks).
- Designated Survivor had a lesbian kill someone else.
- Legends of Tomorrow went to Themyscira but Sara Lance didn’t get to go. That’s probably a smart call. Sara and Antiope would never leave.
- Scandal introduced a lesbian and blew her up in the same episode, because plot.
- Grey’s Anatomy had lesbian parents, with one giving birth while the hospital had no power (also Sofia came to live with Arizona just as she made up with Carina, who’s also sleeping with Owen).
- Riverdale finally gets points on the board as Toni Topaz came out as bisexual.
- The Young and the Restless are still going strong with Tessa and Mariah. I’m still quite surprised at that.
Honorable Mentions go to…
- Shameless finally introduced their new lesbian characters.
- Curb Your Enthusiasm brought out some queer for laughs.
- Steven Universe dropped some new episodes, in which they properly refer to Stevonnie by gender neutral pronouns.
- Runaways was recently released on Hulu. Go watch it. They’re keeping in the queer character.
- The L Word, yes I know, but they have a show runner, and she’s not Chalkin. Marja-Lewis Ryan will oversee the ‘reboot’ – which is a new description. They’ve used sequel, revival, and now reboot. So I have no idea where this is going.
- Godless came out on Netflix and turned to not at all be the feminist show we wanted. (Seriously, someone figured out that 73% of the lines in the first episode were spoken by men, and the Vox reviewer was upset she’d actually picked that show to review.)
- Madam Secretary, who introduced Sara Ramierez as Kat Sandoval. We don’t know if she’s queer yet, but my fingers are crossed.
The Dead
You knew I was going to list all of them, right?
- Cristina Salgado / El Señor de los Cielos (recurring character) / 27 October
- Ivy Mayfair-Richards / American Horror Story (regular character) / 31 October
- Esperanza Salvatierra / El Señor de los Cielos (regular character) / 31 October
- Yasmeen / Scandal (guest character) / 02 November
- Jenna Hensel / The Good Doctor (guest character) / 06 November
- Bebe Babbitt / American Horror Story (guest character) / 07 November
- Winter Anderson / American Horror Story (regular character) / 07 November
To be honest, I was expecting a lot more. There may be more as Thanksgiving delays a lot of reports. Still, losing 7 in that short a time is pretty rough. Some shows haven’t hit their finales yet for 2017 either, so don’t get too excited about the low number.
