So, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea Rihanna is in yet another acting gig that coincides with something I've come to love or find interest in. She's not made many songs that I like to begin with (only one of which is actually in my music collection), and I've not been a fan of celebrity hype in general (something that seems to follow her around 🙄). She's a fair actress, so I am not in the outrage camp some people are in of "HOW DARE THEY?!", even though I am a little miffed they'd chosen her.
Looking at my IMDb widget and seeing it's her birthday anniversary today, it had me thinking whether putting the Bates final season premiere on today was intentional or a coincidence. I'm leaning towards intentional (I'm about to expand on the moreso reason for my thoughts) partly because of the Holmesian thought that "rarely is the universe so lazy".
1) People on the Bates Motel Facebook page have chimed in that naturally they bring her in to bring more people to watch a show that has had ever-declining ratings. This may work to a degree, but other shows I've noticed they do this to, it usually literally only lasts the first episode (thinking right now of American Horror Story: Hotel in their plastering Lady Gaga all over the place).
They may want new people to try exposing them to other A&E shows' commercials they're likely to bombard us with tonight (well, those who're watching live, one of whom won't be me because I'd cut the cord months ago) along with the product commercials they're equally likely to overdo ad-vomit-inducing-nauseum. This may be in hope they'll stick around to watch those other shows (even though it probably won't work; remember how they'd tried and failed to entice us to watch that lackluster Chloë Sevigny drama Those Who Kill?).
They may just be experimenting to see if the celebrity hype factor can influence viewership over a longer term (because maybe it may not be as much of a one-off as I'm predicting it will), and use that information to try this again across their networks. They may even be trying to see if it's worth keeping Carlton Cuse around, since he's brought quite a few series to A&E (but I'm sure he's getting more expensive to have around with that tenure).
2) Having the premiere on with Rihanna's birthday might interact with that celebrity hype thing because her fans will probably be flooding her Twitter account and Facebook page with celebratory wishes and lots of views. She's more than likely put on both those places mentions she's going to be on tonight's episode, and so the masses who follow her, for the greater part, will probably do what she asks. Thinking about it, too, there would be the eyes on her IMDb page too, seeing that screen credit.
3) There was one Facebook reply that off-handedly mentioned she was a fan of, if not the series itself, Psycho and/or Alfred Hitchcock. It could be a thank-you to her in passing.
But then, yes, it could be as much a coincidence as the final season premiere of yet another one of my now-cancelled favorite series Tyrant was in that it premiered on the last day of Ramadan (the series taking place mostly in a fictional, majority-Muslim nation).
But rarely is the universe so lazy.
Am I overthinking this? What do you think? Do you agree? Is there another reason there might be? What do you think of her being Marion Crane?
We'll see what the next weeks' ratings show.
