Liz & Dick Scores on Lifetime

4th MOST-WATCHED LIFETIME MOVIE OF 2012 DESPITE THE CRITICAL BASHING

Yes, I know…Lindsay Lohan as the legendary Elizabeth Taylor is debatable. But the broadcast premiere of original Lifetime movie Liz & Dick, featuring Grant Bowler as Richard Burton, was sampled with 3.5 million total viewers on Sunday (according to the Live Plus Same Results from Nielsen). Results demographically were 1.3 million adults 18-49, 1.3 million adults 25-54, 1.1 million women 18-49 and 1.0 million women 25-54. Comparably (and excluding miniseries), Liz & Dick is now Lifetime’s fourth most-watched original movie premiere on ad-supported cable in 2012 (behind Steel Magnolias, Drew Peterson: Untouchable and Abducted: The Carlina White Story).

Compared to the 2012 to-date average for Lifetime original movies, Liz & Dick increased by double-digit percentages across the board (including 40 percent in total viewers and as much as 52 percent in women 18-49).

However, many top TV critics panned Liz & Dick. Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker described (Source: EW.com), “Taylor and Burton deserved better, and Lohan should have shed her protective shell and stepped up her game.” TV Guide’s Matt Roush was far less forgiving (Source: TVGuide.com) : “An epic of stunningly cynical and pathetic miscasting, a TV-movie so laughably inept it doesn’t deserve to be on a first-name basis with anything resembling humanity.”