Sunday night’s Season 5 finale of “Breaking Bad” snared 2.8 million viewers on AMC at 10 p.m. Those are unspectacular numbers for your average cable series, but they’re solid for “BB” — and represent a whopping increase of 47 percent, in total viewers, over last year’s Season 4 finale (it was also up significantly in several other demos, including households, adults 18-49 and adults 25-54). For this half-season, “BB” averaged 2.6 million viewers over eight episodes, which was up nearly 40 percent from last season.
Personally, I was a tad disappointed in Sunday night’s episode, maybe because this series never ceases to surprise and shock me — and I was neither surprised or shocked by the events that unraveled in “Gliding Over All” (which is the title of a poem by Walt Whitman, who, as “BB” fans know, has particular significance here).
(In the event someone who’s reading this is a fan — and hasn’t yet seen the episode — I’m shutting up about plot developments.)
And now we have to wait nearly another year until the show’s final eight episodes. Sheesh. But I guess in the glass-half-full vein, that will give loyal fans — and those who haven’t yet seen the show — plenty of time to catch up on the previous five seasons and prepare for Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) last stand.
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I had the chance to speak to Bob Barker yesterday for a story we ran in today’s TV section (on Barker not being invited to the 40th anniversary telecast of “The Price is Right,” which aired yesterday, Tuesday, on CBS).
Barker, now 88, was in fine fettle, not only in addressing the “Price is Right” kerfuffle, but in proudly noting how, as an outspoken animal-rights activist, he was instrumental in helping change the face of daytime TV (at least when it comes to game shows).
“When I was there [at ‘The Price is Right’], when I was host and executive producer — even before I became an executive producer — I had them take fur coats off the show,” Barker said. “And I’m happy to say that other game shows followed suit. And we never gave away leather clothing of any kind.
“There are no fur prizes [on daytime TV] anymore that I know of,” Barker said.
As you’ll read in my story in today’s TV section, Barker was especially perturbed that “Price” sent a contestant to see the Calgary Stampede in Canada — an annual event Barker told me is “considered one of the most despicable” of all the rodeos. “Since 1986, they have killed more than 50 animals in what they call the ‘Chuckwagon Race,’ ” he said. “This year was the 100th anniversary of the [Calgary] stampede and on the first day they killed three horses.
“You can sum it up by saying that, if you or I did this to animals, on our property, we would be arrested for animal cruelty and possibly put in jail.”
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“Body of Proof” star Dana Delany will be one of the many celebrities participating in the third Stand Up to Cancer telethon airing Sept. 7 on all four networks and on cable. For Delany, it’s personal — her father, Jack, died from pancreatic cancer when Delany was 24 (she’s now 56 — the same age as her father when he was diagnosed). And Delaney tells the Sept. 17 issue of People magazine that she’s “appalled” at the lack of progress made in treating pancreatic cancer.
“He saw my career was launched, that I’d be okay,” she says about her father, who saw Delany on Broadway in “A Life” just before he passed away.
“I think it gave him a sense of peace. That meant so much.”
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Last, but not least:
* TBS has renewed “Sullivan & Son” (Steve Byrne, Christine Ebersole, Brian Doyle-Murray, Dan Lauria) for a second season of 10 episodes launching next year. It’s averaged around 2.5 million viewers . . . Antenna TV will air a 16-hour marathon of “Maude” next Wednesday, Sept. 12, beginning at 11 a.m. The CBS series, starring Bea Arthur and Bill Macy (who turned 90 last May), is celebrating its 40th anniversary . . . Congrats to veteran TV maven Marc Berman, who’s celebrating the first anniversary of his must-read column in TV Media Insights.