the buzz log

Proving that folks don't need much of an excuse to search on a celeb, queries on Teri Hatcher surged 991% after she was exonerated of two-timing a cosmetics company. The "Desperate Housewives" star and Hydrodream endorser had been accused of pushing a competitor’s products. A judge thought otherwise and moved the lawsuit out of court and into arbitration. Not exactly the trial of the century, but in the post-O.J. landscape we'll take what we can get.

Filed under: Desperate Housewives, Legal Cases

As the TV season winds down, we're deluged with season-ending cliffhangers and series-ending farewells. Search spikes on "The West Wing," "Survivor," and even "The Surreal Life" prove that searchers love to tune in just as the curtains are closing. ABC finally finished up a three-part finale of runaway hit "Grey's Anatomy," maximizing buzz on the soapy hospital drama.

Searches on "Grey's" jumped 294% over the weekend and are now about double that of sibling Sunday-night show "Desperate Housewives." Publicity-shy Eva Longoria and the gals used to beat the dreamy docs of Seattle Grace handily—what the heck happened? An interesting column in Newsday posits that "Grey's" has stolen most of the heat of "Housewives" and pinpoints the flip-flop in fortunes to the heavily hyped post-Super Bowl episode of "Grey's." We looked at a Buzz chart and found the theory to be dead on. Witness the reversal of ratings in the graph below:

In early February, right around Super Bowl time, the doctors sewed up the Buzz momentum, and they've had Wisteria Lane on life support ever since. Can the "Housewives" get a heartbeat again in Season 3? That's a real-life cliffhanger that won't be answered 'til the first fall ratings...

Filed under: TV, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives