ESPN's Monday Night Football was back with a vengeance this week -- a 6.4 Adult 18-49 rating for the Pittsburgh Steelers at San Francisco 49ers, the highest-rated game since November 7 (6.9 rating for Chicago Bears at Philadelphia Eagles). NFL Network was not so lucky Thursday, drawing the Jacksonville Jaguars at Atlanta Falcons. The game fell well below a 2 rating and out of the top 10 for cable programs this week.
On the unscripted front, A&E's Storage Wars has been growing steadily over the past few weeks and has taken the crown of top unscripted cable program. Almost as strong -- on less-viewed Friday night no less -- Discovery's Gold Rush continues to grow.
Showtime's Dexter ended its season Sunday with a ho-hum 1.0 rating. It should have been a series finale, but Showtime wants to grind out two more seasons of the once-great series that has become marked by wooden acting, predictable stories, clunky writing, and lazy narration. Showtime can be proud of the Homeland season finale, which rose to a 0.7 (after spending most of the season in the 0.4-0.5 range).
