Remote Island Olivia told you how Rosie Live drew only 5 million viewers, losing decisively in the ratings battle to former fellow View-er Barbara Walters' interview with Barack Obama. Now we're discovering just how much the few people who tuned in hated what they saw. We only watched briefly, during Rosie's duet with Liza Minelli, in which Minelli kept a weird, distant smile plastered on her face as O'Donnell shrieked the lyrics as loud as she could. Now, Liza can't pick a husband, but she can still really belt them out; one might have thought Rosie would take a backseat on that one. But she's not really a backseat type of gal. Still, as shrill and crappy as that was, given the general state of TV these days, it wasn't horrifying, in the way that TV critics seemed to be horrified. Check some of these reviews out:
If Rosie O’Donnell and company were consciously determined to strangle the rebirth of variety shows in the crib, they couldn’t have done a better job of it than this pre-holiday turkey. - Variety
There's nothing like a good holiday variety show and this was nothing like one. - The Hollywood Reporter
The entire hour landed with a sickening, sad, ill-conceived thud...It was a really big bomb, an embarrassment and a pathetic eulogy for a form of TV. - TV Guide
Jeez. O'Donnell accepted the failure with grace, writing on her website:
no ratings/bad reviews/yet still—a thrill 4 me
... and then conceding:
there will b no more.
don't b sad, Rosie. life is 2 short. we feel 4 u.
-- Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights