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... The big match yesterday between the Ravens of Baltimore and the 49ers of San Francisco, known by the common folk as Super Bowl XLVII, now has a place in history. Just not where CBS had hoped it would be. 108.41 million people watched the Ravens hoist the Lombardi Trophy, making it the third-most watched broadcast in all of television history. Given the way Super Bowls have been regular record setters, it's a bit of a letdown for CBS, who no doubt had been rooting for the Patriots to beat the Ravens in the playoffs to set up a sexier match-up. A 34-minute power-outage delay in the third quarter with the Ravens holding a comfortable lead probably also led to a smaller audience than last year's record-setter (111.3 million viewers). Elementary landed the coveted post-Super Bowl spot, but because of the delay, it didn't start until after 11pm on the East Coast and netted 20.8 million viewers. That's a series high for freshman drama, but it's also way down from NBC's broadcast of The Voice last year after the big game, which suckered in 37.6 million viewers. In other news, I posted a season-high in calories, taking in the equivalent of a Blue Whale's week. [THR]

PICKUPS, RENEWALS, CANCELLATIONS, AND DATES

... Disney Channel has renewed Dog With a Blog for a second season. The show is a bone-a-fido hit among kids age 2-11 and TV.com writers named Tim. Seriously, did you see the episode when Stan the Talking and Blogging Dog crashed the car or the one where he played online video games and had Avery meet his online friend and pretend it was him but then she ended up liking the boy and Stan got upset and then later they teamed up to kill him online? Classic Stan. [Deadline Hollywood]

... GSN (the Game Show Network) has ordered 40 episodes of Minute To Win It, the competition where contestants do silly things with household items for cash. It used to air on NBC. [GSN via press release]

... Discovery is getting irie, brah. The network has announced two ganja-themed shows set to debut February 20: Pot Cops, which isn't about cops who get stoned and try to shoot criminals, and Weed Country, following the battle between pot growers and cops in Northern California. [Discovery via press release]

... Syndicated talk show The Ricki Lake Show has been canceled. Will someone break this news to Ricki? She's waiting in the studio talking to a vase. [Deadline Hollywood]

PILOT PICKUPS AND PASSES

... CBS has ordered a trio of pilots to beef up its development schedule. Single-camera comedy Crazy Ones comes from David E. Kelley and stars Robin Williams as the father half of a father-daughter team in the world of advertising. Anatomy of Violence comes from the producers of Homeland and follows a criminal psychologist who teams up with a young female detective. And Intelligence is about a U.S. Central Command agent who has a microchip planted in his brain that allows him to see electromagnetism. [TV Guide]

... MTV has ordered a pilot presentation for Watching the Wilsons, a partly improvised comedy spoofing the world of reality television. It would focus on a Kardashian-like family, but be partly scripted like most of the other reality shows out there. [Deadline Hollywood]

... Showtime has passed on the potential Chew series, which is a total bummer. The show would have been based on the comic series about a detective who can get psychic information from eating food. It also would have been awesome. Sad. [MTV]

CASTING NEWS

... Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor, who just booked a role on Law & Order: SVU, will star in Amazon's comedy pilot The Onion Presents: The News, a fictional behind-the-scenes look at the fictional news network. [Deadline Hollywood]

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Super Bowl XLVII—featuring the Baltimore Ravens vs. the San Francisco 49ers—happens Sunday, February 3 in New Orleans. CBS has the broadcast rights to the game this year, and kickoff is 6:30pm Eastern (though pre-game coverage will begin much earlier; check your local listings).

Indeed you can: Stream the game live online at CBSSports.com. You can even choose your own camera angles!

Also an option! To watch on a phone or tablet, download the NFL Mobile app at NFL.com/mobile. If you're outside the U.S., try the NFL Game Pass app.

Beyonce, with a rumored Destiny's Child reunion.

They'll be available on demand at CBSSports.com after they've aired, and we'll be posting them here on the site as part of our third annual Bowlie Awards, so please join us to talk about them and vote on your favorites, won't you?

A little, but not really. During the game, folks who prefer baby animals to animalistic men tackling each other should check out Puppy Bowl IX on Animal Planet. Otherwise, Downton Abbey's new on PBS, and this year's post-game programming slot will feature Elementary, which should air a special new episode sometime between 10pm and 10:30pm Eastern. That'll be followed by a Craig Fergurson Super Bowl special at 11:35pm.

Enjoy watching the game/having an excuse to eat endless nachos/squealing over the Puppy Bowl/judging the commercials, and go Niners!

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What to watch on Friday, February 1...

SERIES PREMIERE, Whenever you feel like it, Netflix
House of Cards
The entire 13-episode series, from executive producers David Fincher and Kevin Spacey, begins streaming on Netflix at midnight Pacific/3am Eastern, so you can chip away at your idealistic faith in the American political system one installment at at time or bludgeon it to a pulp in a marathon viewing session. Spacey stars as a conniving congressman with grand ambitions—and a vendetta against the new U.S. president.

8pm, NBC
The NAACP Image Awards
The iconic civil rights organization holds its 44th annual celebration of achievement in the arts, with nominees from the realm of TV including Aziz Ansari, Donald Glover, and Kerry Washington. Steve Harvey hosts live from Los Angeles.

8pm, CBS
Undercover Boss
A Boston Market exec puts the "officer" in Chief Brand Officer when she must personally enforce company policy. In a series first, her stint on the front lines of fast-casual chain dining leads to a rambunctious employee getting canned.

8pm, The CW
Nikita
Ryan sends a team to rescue his abducted girlfriend from the clutches of a rogue agent, but you just know that the first seven places the team checks they're gonna be told that she's in another castle. Elsewhere in "Survival Instincts," Nikita is thrown for a loop when Owen, rather than Michael, joins her in the field.

9pm, Starz
Spartacus: War of the Damned
Spartacus and Co. plan to capture a Roman city to house their burgeoning community in "Wolves at the Gate." Meanwhile, Crassus's growing force gains a major, if unpredictable, asset with the arrival of a brash young military commander: Julius Caesar.

10pm, CBS
Blue Bloods
When a man riddled with rat bites is thrown from a moving car in "Inside Jobs," Danny tries to find out who was sending a message and why. Come to think of it, has anyone seen the kid from Ben around lately?

LATE-NITE:
– Wanda Sykes, Tyler Hamilton, and Brandford Marsalis on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 11:35pm, NBC
– Kevin Spacey, Nick Griffin, and Emeli Sandé on Late Show with David Letterman, 11:35pm, CBS
– Highlights from earlier in the week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, 11:35pm, ABC
– Jason Bateman, Zosia Mamet, and Andrea Bocelli on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 12:37am, NBC
– Joe Theismann and Ariel Tweto on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, 12:37am, CBS

What to watch on Saturday, February 2...

10:30am, Cartoon Network
Young Justice
This week's outing is called "Runaways." Could the title indicate that, with the cancellation writing on the wall, our heroes are throwing DC-Marvel rivalry and licensing concerns to the wind and launching a rogue crossover with another band of juvenile superfolk? Probably not!

SERIES FINALE, 8pm, Nickelodeon
Victorious
Mr. Sikowitz dares the kids to respond in the affirmative for a full day in "Victori-Yes," the series finale. Such blatant inversion of Nancy Reagan's famous advice to America's youths can only lead down a road of debaucherous ruin. Or possibly to a send-off full of family-friendly hijinks.

9pm, BBC America
Ripper Street
Cholera fears grip London, but some of the bodies turning up in Jackson's morgue show evidence of deliberate ergot poisoning (which was nicknamed "St. Anthony's Fire" back then, because the Victorians were streets ahead of us at hanging monikers on maladies). Naturally the team races to uncover a pattern behind the mounting death toll.

SPECIAL NIGHT AND TIME, 10:05pm & 10:35pm, HBO
Girls & Enlightened
Rather than pit its two Sunday-night comedies against an event likely to draw literally fifty times their combined average viewership, HBO is just gonna leave a couple of new episodes right here for you on Saturday (they're also already available on HBOGO). Hannah throws a dinner party that spirals into immaturity in "It's A Shame About Ray," while Amy discovers the brave new world of social media and Tyler fends off Dougie's investigation in "Follow Me."

What to watch on Sunday, February 3...

3pm, Animal Planet
Puppy Bowl IX
Puppies caper. Hedgehogs cheerlead. Kitties perform at halftime. Hamsters survey the proceedings from tiny blimps. Meep the Bird live-tweets the entire spectacale. Humans bask in a much-needed oasis from the unrelenting deluge of stupid that marks their own, severely less adorable species.

LIVE, 6:30pm Eastern, CBS
Super Bowl XLVII
America's annual flash card reminding us how roman numerals work returns for its 47th season. The Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers square off in a footballing match at New Orleans's palatial I'm Not Bothering To Google Its Corporate Sponsor Superdome. Beyoncé and her reunited Destiny's Child squadmates are scheduled to perform at halftime, which should occur about four and half hours after kickoff.

9pm, PBS
Downton Abbey
All the other networks flee into repeats tonight, but the Granthams are not so timid (though it's worth noting that, as of Tuesday, the rest of the season is already legally available on iTunes/DVD). They greet your so-called American football with a curt "pish-tosh!" and soldier on with a new episode, which finds Robert at odds with both Cora and Matthew. The esteemed residents of Downton didn't let the Jerries slow them down and they'll be damned if they let the 49ers do so! Stiff upper lip and all that rot.

SPECIAL POST-SUPER BOWL EPISODE, 10pm or whenever the game actually ends, CBS
Elementary
Sherlock and Joan earn the coveted post-Super Bowl slot, but even that honor may not help Joan stave off the threat of eviction from her apartment. The case of the week in "The Deductionist" pairs Holmes with an FBI profiler on the trail of an unpredictable criminal played by guest-star Terry Kinney. He's so unpredictable, even the episode summary doesn't know what he'll do next!

SPECIAL POST-SUPER BOWL EPISODE, 11:35pm, CBS
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Cool down from ~17 hours of gridiron glory and artery annihilation with a star-studded special installment of The Late Late Show. Guests include Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Julie Chen, Neil Patrick Harris, Nikki Reed, and Drew Brees.

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Like one of Stefon's magical nightclubs, Super Bowl XLVII had everything: Football. Beyonce. Ray Lewis. A power outage that inspired some pretty good Revolution / FlashForward / Total Blackout jokes. Oh, and commercials. Commercials featuring babies! And cars! And beer! And... Stevie Wonder as a voodoo master?

Le sigh: We found most of this year's crop to be pretty pathetic—but of course that didn't stop us from yammering about them on the internet! Below, you'll find nearly every ad that aired this year, starting with our picks for best and worst, and polls so you vote on our selections. Name your own favorites and least-favorites in the comments!

Curse you, big box, for using our dear Amy Poehler, but damn if she doesn't make everything better.

@zhandlen I'm going to buy a dongle because Amy Poehler said it twice. I don't even think I need one.

— Noel Kirkpatrick (@noelrk) February 4, 2013

A clear winner. Silly, called back the "Great Taste/Less Filling" thing, but framed in a funny way.

Yeah, the premise is nearly as old as the actors in the ad, but it was funny and well done. (Although it's time to officially retire that fun. song now, right? Translating it into Spanish doesn't make it any less exhausting.)

Sometimes you can't go wrong with a solid crowd-pleaser. Also Kaley Cuoco.

Definitely the best use of an infant this year.

Awwwwwwwwww.

'MURCA. #KatDenningBoobs

— MaryAnn Sleasman (@Radium_Girl) February 4, 2013

Poor Stevie Wonder. He deserves better than this. And so do we.

Stevie Wonder did MORE THAN ONE OF THESE COMMERCIALS? #superbowl

— Nick Campbell (@sononick) February 4, 2013

Babies also come from fucking in the back of a Kia

— Tim Surette (@TimAtTVDotCom) February 4, 2013

Is Budweiser Black Crown made for parties in a vampire nest? #superbowl

— Nick Campbell (@sononick) February 3, 2013

Also heard in the TV.com peanut gallery after this pair of ads came on: "Between this and 2 Broke Girls, that Peter, Bjorn, and John song is forever ruined." "So fancy. Too bad it's still Budweiser at the end of the day." "Budweiser Black Crown: When leather jackets, goatees, and acoustic guitars aren't enough."

Go ahead, invade other people's personal spaces and just kiss them. Because it's brave and not at all creepy or horrible or slightly rape-y to do that. Also: People LIKE it.

THIS IS WHY NO ONE LIKES YOU, GODADDY. NO ONE. (But, good to see Fernando from Chuck getting work!)

Was it funny? We remember laughing.

Would've been better if it wasn't feature-length? Regardless, <3 u Bob Odenkirk.

ABC just greenlit a comedy pilot based on that Doritos commercial

— Tim Surette (@TimAtTVDotCom) February 4, 2013

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Young Justice S02E14: "Runaways"

So, what do you all want to discuss first? The Super Friends character homages or that Green Beetle was exactly what we suspected him of being all along? Let's do the runaway Super Friends characters first since, well, what more can we say about Green Beetle other than, "What a non-twist!"

For those of you who may not know, and it's reasonable if you don't, Super Friends was a Hanna-Barbera series about a Justice League-esque group (Superman, Batman and Robin, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman) that went through a couple of different iterations between 1973 and 1986. The show had different tones and goals across those iterations. The first season was big on the kid-friendly public service announcements ("Saving energy is important, children!") and barely had recognizable DC villains at all. The second season saw the introduction of Black Vulcan, Samurai, El Dorado, and Apache Chief to give the series a little diversity.

The Super Friends series is sort of maligned due to its overly earnest moralizing and silly adventuring, but it's an important part of DC media history, and "Runaways" paid homage to the characters I just mentioned. Virgil stood in for Black Vulcan, what with their similar uses of electricity-based powers; the Japanese girl, Sam (short for Asami), was our Samurai, and used an energy-projection ability to travel in a way that Samurai used a tornado to travel; Eduardo borrowed El Dorado's teleportation abilities; and Tye Longshadow's giant astral manifestations harkened back to Apache Chief's ability to grow in size. The coloring of the youngsters' clothes even mirrored that of their 1970s counterparts.

So I rather enjoyed both the character nods to an older piece of DC animated history and where they fit into the story. Virgil, Sam, Tye, and Eduardo have been background players since the Reach's abduction of them, and having them do something, even if it was a very half-assed runaway plot, provided a welcome change of pace from the larger plot of the show. Their characterization suffered due to our lack of experience with them, but that's pretty much par for the course for the second season of Young Justice.

As a result, their recruitment by Lex, foreshadowed in the most obvious way possible a couple of weeks ago, didn't fill me with worry or dread like it probably should have. It just feels like more plotting and conniving. That being said, I really want to buy into the idea that Lex is beginning to work against the Reach, since one of my biggest problems with the Light and the Reach's union has always been that I find it difficult to believe that villains with big agendas and egos—like Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, and Ra's al Ghul—would sacrifice those things for the Reach's plans. So if the villains have turned against their alien masters, that's a bit interesting. If this is just some con to get the kids on board, I'm less engaged.

But I guess we should talk about the Blue Beetle thing, eh? Turned out that Green Beetle's little reconfiguring of the scarab last week is indeed spurring on the end of the world, as he actually allowed the scarab to take control of Jaime. It's for the best that we were let in on the cause of Jaime's overly violent behavior as opposed to having it strung out for a few episodes since, well, we all already saw this coming a mile away. A surprise of some sort would've been nice, but we'll just have to wait and see how this contributes to the show's endgame.

– DC Nation Short: Another installment of the Lightning and Thunder shorts. I liked the family vibe the short played up, particularly the "Black Lightning as a single parent" aspect, but it was also one of those shorts that felt like everything would play better even as an 11-minute version.

– Justice League Unlimited had a similar sort of plot with the Super Friends characters in the episode "Ultimatum," though they excluded El Dorado in favor of the more recognizable Wonder Twins. If you haven't seen the episode, I'd advise against it until Young Justice finishes. Their arc on this series may mirror the plot of that episode.

– I had completely forgotten about Red Volcano, and what Red Volcano even looked like. In my defense, he hasn't appeared on the show since Oct. 21, 2011.

– "Except you're flying around free as a... beetle."

– "Where's Amazo's head?!" I'm going to start shouting that at the office.

– I kept waiting for Green Beetle to transform into the Earth-16 Ma'alefa'ak, the big nemesis of the Martian Manhunter, in that last scene, but I'm starting to think he's just a Martian with a scarab. Ah, well.

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