'The Sound of Music Live!' gives NBC highest ratings in four years

NBC took a risk by featuring The Sound of Music Live! and it paid off. The network has struggled with ratings over the past few years, and this unconventional holiday production gave them the most viewers for a non-sports Thursday night in four years.

As Entertainment Weekly pointed out: "The three-hour performance of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical delivered 18.5 million viewers and a great 4.6 rating among adults 18-49. Excluding sports, this is NBC's biggest Thursday in the adult demo since the ER finale in 2009 and most-watched Thursday since the Frasier finale in 2004."

The show required American Idol alum Carrie Underwood to really focus on acting, not something she has had much experience doing. In an interview with EW before the show aired, Underwood described how she immediately began preparing for the part.

"I feel like nobody has ever done anything like this, so we're all newbies at this particular project. But we all kind of have our fortes, you know what I mean? I'm used to live television, that's what I do, and being in the studio for the soundtrack. And then we have all these incredible Broadway veterans - that's their forte. But I knew I had the furthest to go, and I've never tried to memorize lines like that before, so I was like, 'I better get started early.'"

Despite the fact that playing the role of Maria was far from her normal work on stage as one of the most popular country singers, Underwood was ready to embrace the part. "It has definitely been fun," she said. "There's not a day that I don't look forward to coming to work. But it definitely is a challenge. I mean, this is completely out of my comfort zone."

In or out of her comfort zone, she hit a home run and the show gave NBC the ratings break it's been desperately craving.