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Okay, so I saw an episode of Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns last night on TBS. The best nap I've ever had. Before going off into LaLa Land, I was too irked by the first episode shown where the young lady in the cast married to Lamann Rucker's character was visited by her abusive ex who was just released from prison. The ex-con-ex came to the house and kidnapped her... she gets away eventually runs back home, guy follows her into the house and gets beat down by the Cora character. The end.
That was it. Was the story just filler between Brown's colorful, blood pressure checking tight clothes? Nothing was discussed about the situation. Is the kidnapper now a recurring character? It was some of the most random stuff I've ever seen. I don't mind sticking with a show until it finds its footing, but if they are going to be lazy and half-assed about it, why bother?
Tyler Perry told executives at the National Association of Television Program Executives in Vegas that his TBS show “Meet the Browns” has received an 80-episode commitment, according to Broadcasting & Cable.[AJC]
The sitcom, shot in his Southwest Atlanta studios, debuted earlier this month with a 10-episode “test” run, with two new episodes over five weeks. The show opened with 3.7 million average viewers January 7, slipped to 3.1 million January 14 and 3 million January 21. Although it debuted well short of “House of Payne” (5.5 million), its performance in its second and third weeks was virtually identical.
The show will come back this summer once the ten episodes are done as a companion to “House of Payne.”
I expect it will probably settle at about 3 million viewers a week, comparable to that of “House of Payne.” In other words, those Tyler Perry fans are very consistent and very loyal.
Atlanta-based TBS, according to the trade publication, has not confirmed this news.
Locally, the show ranked 27th last week with 182,000 viewers. The show last week was top 10 among African Americans, drawing more viewers than “American Idol.”
In 2006, Perry aired a test version of “House of Payne” in several cities and TBS was so impressed with the results, it gave him an unprecedented 100-episode commitment. The show debuted in 2007 and aired 100 episodes in about a year’s span, typically two a week, sometimes four a week. “Payne” is scheduled to return next month once “Meet the Browns” is finished.
Also, during the panel, Perry said he would never screen his films, saying it’s not worth the money:
“I staged Madea Goes to Jail at the Kodak Theater and hosted critics from the LA Times and Variety. Each saw the same play from virtually the same seat. The LA Times said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to the Kodak Theater, while Variety said it was the best thing he had ever seen. I realized that it’s all just a person’s opinion. Am I going to pay for someone to see one of my movies to tell me they don’t like it? No. I get millions of messages on my message boards from people all over the world. That’s who tells me what they want to see.”
