A24's comedy The Lovers starring Debra Winger and Tracy Letts as well as Janus Films' restored 1979 Soviet-era sci-fi drama Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky had top per theater averages in the first weekend of May, while The Orchard's The Dinner with Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Steve Coogan was by far the widest open…

No surprise here, but CBS today made it official. A pair of freshman series, drama Stalker and comedy The McCarthys, will not be coming back for a second season. They join the <a title="'Battle Creek' Cancelled By CBS; Network Passes On 'Sneaky Pete'"…

One villain met his end and another made his big move on Gotham (1.5/5) last night as the Fox series stepped toward its Season 1 finale next week. There was no Fish Mooney on Monday, but Wayne Enterprises' Lucius Fox made his debut on the Batman backstory show's penultimate episode. Among adults 18-49, it was fairly…

UPDATED: Last season, 12 freshman scripted series made it to Season 2. That number will likely be matched and even surpassed this season, which has been pretty strong for newcomers. Nine freshman series already have been given early renewals, Fox’s Empire, Gotham and The Last Man On Earth, CBS’ Madam Secretary, Scorpio…

Mira Sorvino has been tapped for a recurring role on the freshman CBS drama Stalker. The psychological thriller from Kevin Williamson tracks stalking cases investigated by LAPD’s Threat Assessment Unit run by Lt. Beth Davis (Maggie Q), working alongside Det. Jack Larsen (Dylan McDermott). Mighty Aphrodite Oscar winner…

There was more drama, more Mommy issues, more Naomi Campbell and more lack of brotherly love on Empire (4.3/12) last night. All of which meant there were a lot of eyeballs on the Lee Daniels and Danny Strong-created freshman hit. Not only was Empire almost right on the money of last week's demo high with just a 2%…

CBS has firmed up its drama plans for the rest of the season. After recently slotting the final season of The Mentalist, the network has now scheduled its two new midseason drama series, Vince Gilligan-David Shore’s Battle Creek and CSI: Cyber. There is a surprise — at the upfront in May, CBS announced that the latest…

It's a week away but it was almost all Thanksgiving all the time on ABC last night. Comedies The Middle (2.2/7), The Goldbergs (2.4/7) and Modern Family (3.7/11) all celebrated Turkey Day in their own way. And there was much for ABC to be thankful for, especially with no The Voice on NBC last night as it was last week…

CBS has joined sibling CW in giving full-season orders to all of its fall series that have premiered so far: new dramas Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans, Madam Secretary and Stalker. The orders for the CBS TV Studios-produced Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans and Madam Secretary are for 9 more episodes, bringing the total to 22…

UPDATE PM: Two of the Wednesday freshman dramas whose fate is yet to be decided went each up a tenth in the finals — NBC’s The Mysteries of Laura (1.4) and Fox’s The Red Band Society (1.0). Both are now up a tenth from last week. In the case of Laura, last night’s performance was off just a tenth from its time period…

After a new show has premiered, it’s all about holding the audience after the blitz of pre-launch promotion is over. Keeping steady is great — showing ratings growth is even better. After a 24% Week 2 drop for ABC’s new comedy Black-ish, it bounced back in Week 3 with a 2.8 in adults 18-49, up +12% from its fast…

UPDATE 2 PM: ABC’s Nielsen fast nationals nightmare continues. Once again, the entire ABC lineup last night was adjusted up — Modern Family went up two tenths to a 3.7 in 18-49, while The Middle (2.0), The Goldbergs (2.3), black-ish (2.6) and Nashville (1.6) each went up 1-tenth in the finals. There were only two…