NBC hedged a huge bet when they decided to air a three-hour live production of The Sound of Music on Thursday night (Dec. 5), and though reviews of the program have come out as mixed, at best, the viewers were certainly alive for the Sound of Music.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC won out Thursday night for the first time this year, all thanks to Carrie Underwood and co. In total, The Sound of Music Live!, which was the first broadcast of its kind in 50 years, pulled in nearly 18.5 million viewers, and got a 4.6 rating among adults ages 18-49.

Those numbers easily beat the No. 2 program of the night, The Big Bang Theory, which still got an impressive 9.5 million viewers.

Despite the stellar ratings, NBC's version of The Sound of Music has received mixed views from viewers and critics. USA Today gave the show a two out of four stars, citing that even though Underwood had the star power to bring in viewers and chops to pull of a solid version of "My Favorite Things," her acting skills left viewers wanting something more, especially when she was stacked up against Broadway bigwigs Audra McDonald and Laura Benati.

These were reviews echoed all across the Internet, be it from People Magazine or the people themselves.

During last night's broadcast, thousands of viewers also tuned in to Twitter to live tweet The Sound of Music and snarked the whole night away, lamenting everything from Underwood's less-then-wonderful acting skills to some excruciatingly tight lederhosen. #TheSoundofMusicLive even bested out Nelson Mandela related things as a trending topic on Twitter, and continued to do so well into Dec. 6.

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