Everything Is Terrible: ‘Celebrity Wife Swap’ Got Double The Ratings Of ‘Happy Endings’

Happy Endings was averaging something like 3.5 million viewers in the Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot this season before it got bumped from ABC’s schedule until Friday, March 29. At the time of said bumping, we informed you that the show was being replaced by Celebrity Wife Swap, and that the first episode would feature Kate Gosselin and Kendra Wilkinson. Let’s check to see how all that went.

The second season premiere of ABC’s Celebrity Wife Swap saddled Playboy pinup Wilkinson with Gosselin’s famed mega-litter (if only you could buy patience at Costco). The show was seen by 7 million viewers and had a 2.4 rating among adults 18-49. That’s up 4 percent from last year’s preview of the celebrity version of Wife Swap last year (and up 14 percent from last year’s regular Tuesday premiere) and represents an all-time high for the show among both viewers and the demo. [EW]

WELP.

Here’s the worst part: You can’t blame ABC for this. Sure, it’s annoying when a network screws around with a show you like, but, I mean, double the viewers. This one’s on us. Like, as a society. Fun, smart network comedies are disappearing like the ice caps because people (your family, your neighbors, you) would rather watch two screeching blonde hyenas babysit each other’s kids. That’s the world we live in, and it’s why we can’t have nice things. And as much as I want to sit here and point the finger at everyone else for this, I just saw that the “wives” on next week’s episode of Celebrity Wife Swap are Coolio and Mark McGrath, and there is something like a 40000000% chance that I will watch at least part of that. I’m part of the problem, and it makes me sick.

The whole thing is a bummer. Here is a picture of Elisha Cuthbert playing with a bunch of puppies.