There were a few concessions to viewers' curiosity.
The Academy Awards had its best ratings in four years, and some of those numbers may have had to do with viewers' curiosity as to whether anyone would find a way around the newly imposed five-second delay of the broadcast.
Matthew Reeve's project has certain built-in attractions, of course, like viewers' curiosity about a movie star's house (are those granite countertops in the kitchen?) and their attraction to Mr. Reeve's on-screen personality, but it takes skill to turn scenes of therapy sessions, fund-raising events and stem-cell-research testimony into something interesting and coherent.
With the first skirmish over in what will be a three-month ratings war, all eyes will be on next Saturday's ratings to see whether The Voice was merely benefiting from viewers' curiosity about a new format, or whether it will become a serious competitor to Cowell's ratings winner.
In the end, I think all this one is going to do is pique viewers' curiosity about Windows 7 — that is, if they haven't already dismissed it out of hand.
"We think it's a primal attraction in the same way we respond to a beautiful rainbow, sunset, or campfire," says Koga of viewers' curiosity about the works in The Art of Plasma.
But it seems to be surrounded by equally interesting stories that percolate in the background, piquing the viewer's curiosity.
All of this material is fantastic grist, but it doesn't begin to answer the viewer's curiosity: what is it actually like to want something this much, and to be willing to work this hard for it?
Invariably, each episode's central conflict is resolved near the end of the show, at which time a new challenge arises to pique the viewer's curiosity.
It might pique the viewer's curiosity, but I suspect many people will see the commercial and just go, "huh?", especially given how rare commercials for web browsers are.
