Part 2 “millions of fans” The first night of Dovekeepers had around 9 million viewers, if I’m remembering correctly. How many of those were Cote de Pablos’s fans? Do you know? I’m just guessing that a significant portion of those watchers were CdP’s fans. Those numbers were still higher than what most TV shows running have. Granted that many of the other networks ran previously viewed episodes in anticipation of higher viewership for the Dovekeepers, look at the viewership for that night. TDK still had the highest viewership after NCIS.
Over 6 million returned for the second night. What brought those people back to such a poorly written show? TV viewers vote with the remote control. Something or someone(s) brought them back.
Most of the other networks would love to have a show that got them 6 to 9 million viewers I guess that I’m a glass half full person and you are a glass half empty person. It is all in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah I do think that Pauley Perrette and David McCallum may have a few problems with CdP, given they criticized her for leaving at the time. The remaining cast are also probably sick of having to deal with some of CdP’s fans who constantly pester them about her leaving, especially on twitter. I know Perrette had to put out a tweet to support Emily Wickersham who was apparently copping some criticism from some of the more annoying ones and even Weatherly got pulled into a little bit of a tiff over the Tiva thing recently. If she ever does come back, a lot of bridges are going to have to be rebuilt.

I never said that, Liz. I can fully understand and support Cote de Pablo hyping it, especially since she apparently thought it was great and had a great time doing it. Frankly, I would have liked to see her talk more about TDK and less about NCIS and Tiva in the promotional interviews, but I can’t totally fault her for that as often it was the interviewers that steered the conversation there.

I can understand Roma Downey hyping it, as it’s her production. I do have a problem with Roma Downey shamelessly trading on and attempting to pander to Cote de Pablo’s former alliance with NCIS to try and drum up an audience rather than actually promoting TDK until nearly the 11th hour, but that’s another matter all together.

My comment was about everyone else – media somewhat, but fans especially – hyping TDK, and Cote de Pablo, as close on the second coming and now frantically trying to justify and/or deny the fact that, quite frankly, it tanked.

And Lee has a very good point – we are in a much different age now than when Mark Harmon was making his B-movies (okay, some were C- or D-, or Z- movies…). If social media had existed the way it does now back then, who knows what would have occured.

Thank you for the diatribe. I knew we could count on you. Total viewrship still beat out every show but NCIS. Was everyone who watched a Cote fan or a Rachel Brosnahan or maybe their family? Wow, they have a lot of loved ones, millions of them. And here is the big question wait for it……..Did the folks at CBS read the script before they bought the Dovekeepers? Did they buy it sight unseen? Shame on them.

As I said, if that is true, Cote de Pablo is guilty of bad judgement. The script was not good. It was a bad adaptation of the novel. I read the book and based on the book, The Dovekeepers, I thought that the character Shirah would be a good fit for Cote. I never saw the script. I was anticipating a good miniseries based on the book. Did you read the book? If you did then you would understand what I’m saying.

As for my comments about Mark Harmon, I chose him as an example of someone who did a lot of films and TV. that ranged from not very good to acceptable. Television finally was a big boon to Harmon. That is where he finally found his niche and NCIS was his greatest success. It took him thirty years to finally reach the top in television. I have to admire him for hanging in there. He’s a real trooper. (And he owes Donald Paul Bellisario a big thanks for giving him the opportunity to be the star of the most watched TV drama in the world.)

Actors make films even when they know they’re not that good. They have to work to pay the rent and put food on the table. It would be foolish for any actor to complete a film and say, “You can skip this one. It’s likely the worst piece of junk that you’ve ever seen.” And yet that is what you want Cote de Pablo to do. What planet do you live on? Yes, she hyped it, just like all actors do.

Agreed, Lee. And I think you’ve hit it on the head – when MH was an up-and-coming star, there was no such thing as “social media”. Who knows what would have happened with him if there had been.

It’s interesting, Lisa, I was thinking earlier today that when Harmon was de Pablo’s age he was just a capable young actor with a pretty face. I don’t believe he had any of the expectation on him that de Pablo has had over this mini series.
The big difference is that he hadn’t gone from total unknown to a hit series like NCIS, almost overnight, and gained an unrealistic impression of himself. He was learning his craft and working his way through a whole series of parts of different types: some good, some not so good and moderate stints on reasonably successful shows that weren’t major hits. He might have gained a following by then, but even if some of them worshipped the ground that he walked on, they did it in isolation because there wasn’t anything like the internet and twitter around for them to band together and try to make it look as if he had a massive following – as is the case with de Pablo.

The evidence is that there are only a limited number of fans who really like de Pablo as an actress – and some of them seem scarily over-invested in her – but they have worked really hard to make their numbers seem greater than they are. They have been aided and abetted by the media, although how much of it is the media loving the actress, compared to believing the hype, by the few, that she is widely liked, is another matter.

Then there is a slightly larger group, though still tiny in comparison to the numbers of NCIS viewers, who especially liked Ziva in the show. There is very little evidence that these viewers are in the slightest bit interested in de Pablo herself, just in her playing Ziva. The post on the NCIS page promoting the Dovekeepers provoked mainly responses asking for Ziva to return to NCIS, very few said they were looking forward to actually watching the Dovekeepers and of those that did, many seemed to be anticipating Ziva in that show as well.

It just seems to me that Miss de Pablo has been led to believe that 8 years on NCIS has made her a star, when it is only a stepping stone toward that. Roma Downey, too, bought into the hype and believed that she would bring millions of fans to the Dovekeepers, yet the viewing figures tell a very different story.

To be fair, it seemed to me that the hype for the show wasn’t very accurate either: promoting it as a biblical epic when the chances were that most who want to watch such things would be put off by the sex scenes and many that probably would have enjoyed it were put off by the biblical association.

I wouldn’t have thought the viewing figures were disastrous but, compared to the unreasonable expectations of some, are not good.

According to an interview she did with CBS News, she took the part based on the script, but was also a fan of the book. So she knew the difference between the script and the book and, in fact, commented on it.
“It’s a big story,” she said. “We’ve had to condense and take elements of the book out. I wish we would’ve had like 12 (hours), but I think we’ve accomplished the objective and are successful in telling the story.”

It is telling that the fourth woman they cut out was the older, less sexy (and sexed up) one.

And, in terms, of your final comment, Mark Harmon wasn’t being touted as the best thing since sliced bread by media and fans, and the one key person that was going to bring huge numbers in for the movie, when he made those lackluster endeavours. A lot of people who who have been going on (and on and on and on) about how great this was going to do because – and in some cases, solely because – of Cote de Pablo’s presence now have great amounts of egg on their face and are in frantic “justify and deny” mode, including the author of this article.

I liked the second part better than the first. But still so much of what was important in the book was changed or left out. This was a story of four women but it became a story of three. The survivors were not the ones who survived in the book. The book made sense but the story they created for the mini did not. It was as if they cut the book into pieces and then tossed the pieces in the blender. Took out a couple of scoops and voila, the script for the mini. One example was the relationship between Yael and the slave, Wyn. In the book, this is more of a friendship They portrayed it as a hot and heavy romance.

So many great films have been made from books. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Gone With the Wind, and To Kill a Mockingbird to name just a few. This, simply, was not one of them. If Cote agreed to do this mini based on the book, I can understand. If she read the script first, I don’t think she exercised good judgement. Still, I don’t blame the actors, they did the best they could given the script they had and the direction they received. I suggest that you read the book and visualize what it could have been.

Also, for the haters, most famous actors have been in shows that flopped. If you look at Mark Harmon’s filmography, you will see a long list of lackluster endeavors.
It comes with the business.

The mini-series had more than just a decent lead in from the ratings winner of the night (NCIS). It’s issue was that it could not *hold* those ratings. They lost numbers in every single time block so even those that tuned on didn’t bother to stay with the show. Nor did they tune in to see the conclusion if last night’s ratings were anything to go by.

& I agree with the comment that the ratings really do reflect on the popularity of the promoted cast member. Downey put all her eggs in de Pablo’s basket of popularity as ziva from NCIS. Looks like most of them broke.