WWE's newest TV program, Total Divas, debuted on E! this week. The show, which features a supposed real-life backstage look at the WWE Divas, their relationships, trials and tribulations, did a 1.1 rating and 1.3 million viewers for its Sunday night debut and 1.5 million viewers for a one-time post-Raw airing on the USA Network. The numbers were good in that it attracted good numbers in the 18-49 demo and was the highest debut since August on E! The bad news is that its lead-in, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, drew 2.8 million viewers. The argument is that there was no way Total Divas or any other program was going to do the same number the Kardashians did, and that's correct, but the plunge was still gigantic, over 1.5 million viewers at a time when there's not a lot of other stuff on television to make someone turn the channel and watch. The question will be how the show does in weeks two and three. It'll still have a lot of WWE publicity on all of the major shows, but it won't get nearly the mainstream attention (and it got a decent amount) that it had going into week one. Shows usually don't do as well the second week as compared to the debut, though just recently the Fight Master TV show opened very low and grew for two straight weeks afterwards before falling off a cliff when it broke down into every Ultimate Fighter you've ever seen without the thing that drove the most interest, backstage and in-house shenanigans.
The show got a mixed reaction. A lot of Internet fans liked it and said they watched with their significant others who also enjoyed the show. Almost all the feedback from people within wrestling was negative. There are those in WWE who believe it will be a big hit because it gives fans nearly unprecedented access to what goes on backstage. My thought is that it'll settle in at about 1 million viewers per week, maybe slightly more and maybe slightly less, which is a fine rating for the E! Network. From watching other E! shows, I don't think the trainwreck aspect is trainwreck enough for your casual E! viewer (at least it wasn't on week one, and the giant plunge after the Kardashians at least suggests that casual E! viewers don't really care about the WWE divas), and the first episode didn't feature enough exciting backstage news that I think WWE fans will consider it must-see TV. This was a show originally earmarked for the WWE Network, so WWE is going to do all they can to make it a hit, because if the Network ever launches they're going to want two or three other shows like this to help build it up.
It's interesting how much backstage stuff they show given that HHH, who has more power than ever backstage, really didn't like Tough Enough because he felt it exposed too much of the business. Of course, it's 2013 now and his outlook might have changed.
The show was largely a worked version of what really goes on in the back, like most reality shows. There were some real-life aspects, such as the incident where Cameron's boyfriend Vincent, who looked like the main heel from Despicable Me, flipped out because Brodus Clay told Cameron she sucked in the ring, and wanted to go beat up Brodus. That really happened. A lot of people in WWE knew about it but it wasn't until this week that they saw it play out, and people had a pretty negative view of Cameron afterwards. She's in a tough spot because her role on the show is to be pretty unlikeable (by far the most unlikeable of anyone), and she's the girl who got cut on Tough Enough after telling Steve Austin her favorite match of all time was Melina vs. Alicia Fox, and who most recently got a DUI in Florida, lied to the cops, and didn't tell WWE about it. Anyone else with all of these strikes in various ways would be long gone, but she's hot, so I presume she'll be around for quite awhile.
It's interesting that the show doesn't follow many of the current WWE storylines. Natalya and Great Khali are dating on TV but in real life she's dating Tyson Kidd. The Bellas are dating Daniel Bryan and Cena. It's also funny that they're referring to Cameron and Naomi by their real names, Ariane and Trinity (the latter of which sounds more like a stage name than her actual stage name), yet the Bellas are the Bellas (not their real last names), and Brodus Clay is Brodus Clay and not his real name. Depends on the circumstance.
There's a lot of bad acting on the show, some really bad, some obviously scripted drama (Eva Marie, for example, being told to dye her hair blonde but she goes into business for herself and dyes it red and the company is totally cool with it -- PREPOSTEROUS), but also some reality, some stuff that's really interesting, and some of the characters are going to get far more over on this show than they ever did on television, like Jimmy Uso. Some of them are also going to come out of this show looking really bad, and I'd guess at the end of the day we'll get some babyface and heel turns out of it on TV.
More than one person has noted to us that the company doesn't like to bring anyone to the main roster who is under the age of 21, and meanwhile Jo Jo Offerman is all over the show and is 19, but legitimately looks about 11 years old. Her gimmick is that she's an amazing singer, so unless she ends up a complete train wreck, and so far on the show she's come off as quiet and respectful, she'll have a job for a long time. The storyline appears to be that Justin Gabriel is going to take advantage of her naivety. So likely heel turn in the works for him.
Interestingly, Total Divas, Impact and Joe Rogan's new Syfy show on anomalous phenomena all did 1.3 million viewers this week.
The company is hoping to work out a deal with some other E! reality show celebrities to make appearances at SummerSlam in Los Angeles as part of a promotional tie-in.
" shyt, now this thread is doing more numbers than SD and Impact 
This shyt may be watchable. But last night was wack. Way too scripted and fake, esp the fandango/redhead bytch. Way too much misc shyt going on. I want to see backstage shyt, not visiting Cena's house (which didn't look like it was his) and finding outfits. Ill watch next week and see if I'm still interested.
AFRICAN DEVIL!!! You all know damn well I'm talking about Justin Gabriel in the 2nd/3rd pic.
thinking about this