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NBC’s highly anticipated Peter Pan Live! on Thursday delivered Nielsen numbers 50 percent lower than last year’s The Sound of Music Live! starring Carrie Underwood, but there was still a pretty significant silver lining for the network.
The hate-watchers went to bed disappointed.
After weeks of snark and jokes and the Twittersphere basically tuning in hoping for a disaster (“Join us as we gander at this slowly-unspooling catastrophe,” wrote Gawker‘s Aleksander Chan,) stars Allison Williams and Christopher Walken surprised everyone with rather solid performances.
“The worst thing you could say about Peter Pan Live! was that it was a lousy hate-watch and, thus, a tiny bit boring,” wrote the Washington Post‘s Hank Steve.
Perhaps the boredom factor helps explain the lackluster ratings.
The broadcast earned a 2.3/7 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast nationals numbers, with declines of 33 percent in that demo from the first half hour to the last half hour.
That kind of performance may throw cold water on the hopes of musical theater fans who were eager to see NBC continue its burgeoning tradition of live broadcasts around the holidays.
As for Williams & Co, Steuver declared that “viewers who stuck with Peter Pan Live! for three hours were treated to a technically adequate, charmingly performed night of retro theater-on-television.”
Williams came in for special praise from the critics.
“If there were problems in Peter Pan Live! — and there were —Williams had precious little to do with them,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tim Goodman.
NBC also couldn’t resist trying to get some Second Screen love from viewers during the broadcast.
As anyone who has ever seen the stage production knows, the audience is supposed to applaud to save Tinkerbell during a pivotal moment in the plot.
The 21st Century television equivalent? Tweeting with a network-approved hashtag, of course:
And don’t forget those selfies!
Read More: The Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline
Brief Take: Regardless of whether NBC continues the live musical tradition, Peter Pan Live! is further evidence that Sharknado opened up a whole new selling point for marketers: tune in and hate watch!
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