Movie Box Review

CW has announced the line-up for its 2011/12 regular season finales, as well as a late-season premiere:

First to exit will be ONE TREE HILL, which winds up its 9 seasons on April 4 with a 2-hour special.

On April 17, RINGER will be done for the season (and maybe longer).  Starting April 24, its timeslot will be filled by the new LA COMPLEX, which sounds like the return of the return of Melrose Place:  a group of Hollywood wannabes all live in the same apartment building, and no doubt suds fly.

The remainder of the network's shows end in mid- to late-May.

May 10:  THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and THE SECRET CIRCLE

May 14:  GOSSIP GIRL and HART OF DIXIE

May 15:  90210

May 18:  NIKITA and SUPERNATURAL

May 29:  LA COMPLEX

May 30:  AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

So much for SMASH being a hit.

NBC:  Leaving the numbers aside for a moment, on a dramatic level SMASH after 3 episodes is starting to lose its practically-cable sheen, and look a lot more like a high-class ABC soap.  The post-pilot episodes haven't even been as good as a typical Parenthood or The Good Wife, much less Mad Men.   And those numbers continue to crumble:  last night's 2.3 was down 40% from the premiere, and as Mitch Metcalf's analysis shows, the drop in the show's 2d half-hour suggests the ratings aren't done falling.  It's only fair to say that if Smash could just stabilize where it is, that would still be a very good number for NBC, on a level with The Office, still the network's highest-rated scripted show.  And as The Sked has noted, the series appeals to the upscale viewers that advertisers covet.  But... coming in 2d place to Hawaii 5-0 (and not that far ahead of Castle in 3d place) is hardly where NBC wanted Smash to be.  On the very important plus side for the the network, though, THE VOICE is holding beautifully, down less than 15% over 3 weeks, and enabling NBC to keep airing those promos asserting domination over once-untouchable American Idol.  

FOX:  The Monday lineup is nearing bottom but may not have gotten there yet.  HOUSE and ALCATRAZ were both slightly down from last week, and Alcatraz had its 2d consecutive week below the lowest number Terra Nova ever had.  

CBS:  HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS and 2 1/2 MEN all recovered some of last week's losses, but each continues to run below its level from the first time facing The Voice .  MIKE & MOLLY and HAWAII 5-0 were steady, albeit at or just above season lows.

ABC:  THE BACHELOR and CASTLE were steady, 0.1 above their respective season lows.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL and  HART OF DIXIE both held with last week at 0.5 and 0.6 respectively.

Fans of COUGAR TOWN could be in for a rough night if its rating drops further from last week's blah debut.  THE RIVER also needs to hit some smoother water.  FOX airs the "midseason finale" of GLEE (next Tuesday there's a 2-hour Idol, then the network launches its 4-sitcom experiment).  Everything continues to be new as February sweeps continue, except that CW is burdening RINGER with the terrible lead-in of a HART OF DIXIE rerun.

NBC can't put away that Alka-Seltzer just yet.

NBC:  THE VOICE, down only around 10% from last week's huge rating, is in great shape at 8PM, and those 2 strong hours pretty much guarantee NBC Monday wins the rest of the season.  So far so good.  But nightly wins aside, an enormous amount of NBC's stature and even its identity has been wagered this season on SMASH, and that part of the night is still unsettled.  Last night, Smash's 2.8 was down about 25% from last week, and as Mitch Metcalf details, that number went down sharply at the half-hour mark.  Right now the show can still fairly be called a hit, winning its hour against CBS and ABC.  But its margin of victory was a shrinking 0.2 (and really it only won the 10-10:30PM half-hour), so the show needs to stabilize quickly.  As I noted in my Pilot + 1 review, creatively the 2d episode started to show some dramatic strain, and NBC will hope those are rectified before more viewers depart. 

FOX:  The Voice is killing ALCATRAZ, which fell by almost half an additional ratings point to another season low.  (Terra Nova fans, stop grinning.)  The show has dropped 40% from its premiere rating.  HOUSE also fell to a new season low, but by a slimmer 0.1, and besides, the series is now officially a lame duck, so its troubles are more short-term.

ABC:  THE BACHELOR and CASTLE continue to hold their own against the NBC competition, with Bachelor down only 0.1 from last week and Castle (with a much-hyped 2-part Bourne-type spy plot) dead even.

CBS:  What the hell happened to HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS and 2 1/2 MEN last night?  All of them had steep falls to new season lows, down 0.6, 0.6 and 0.5 from last week even though competition from The Voice was lower this week.  (And so much for any Grammys halo effect.)  Any and all theories are welcome.  MIKE & MOLLY and HAWAII 5-0 were down a more modest 0.1 each, although that still marked a new season low for each of them.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL, on the downswing of its illustrious career, was down 0.1 to a 0.5, beaten by stablemate HART OF DIXIE, which was even at 0.6.

Tonight ABC finally brings back COUGAR TOWN, with LAST MAN STANDING as the least compatible possible lead-in for that show this side of Man Up!  After that, the network will hope that THE RIVER doesn't collapse further from its unimpressive debut.

For one night, at least, all NBC's dreams came true.

NBC:  THE VOICE blew away its competition, especially in the 9-10PM hour.  Its 6.6 rating over 2 hours was naturally way down from Sunday night, where it had the most-watched telecast of all time as its lead-in, but for NBC it was manna from heaven.  Of course, last season Voice faltered somewhat as its run went on, so we'll see how its numbers hold up over time--still, an exceptional start.  SMASH and its 3.8 were also an easy winner at 10PM.  As Mitch Metcalf has noted, though (see his half-hour by half-hour breakdown of the numbers here), the drop over the course of the hour may be something to be concerned about--by 10:30PM, the show had lost 55% of The Voice's 9:30PM rating.  Next week, we'll find out how frontloaded all of these numbers were by months of expensive hype.  For now, though, the marketing people at NBC can exult in a job superbly well done.  

CBS:  The Eye was tearing in the face of NBC's sudden juggernaut.  Every show on its Monday line-up was either at (2 1/2 MEN, MIKE & MOLLY, HAWAII 5-0) or 0.1 above (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS) its season low.  That still left the network firmly in 2d place in every half-hour... but 2d place isn't 1st place.

FOX:  HOUSE and ALCATRAZ both plummeted to season lows (Alcatraz was down a particularly ugly 0.6 from last week, leaving it at a very mediocre 2.2), landing in 4th place for the night.

ABC:  Somewhat surprisingly--considering the nature of NBC's new shows--the female-skewing networks held up best against the onslaught.  THE BACHELOR was even with last week, and CASTLE was down only 0.1 from its last original (although that tied its season low).  

CW:  Its young audience was largely unaffected by the sea change at NBC:  GOSSIP GIRL was down only 0.1 from its hyped 100th episode last week, and HART OF DIXIE was even.

Tonight, ABC will attempt to generate some of its own hoopla with the 2-hour premiere of "found footage" supernatural thriller THE RIVER, another series Executive Produced by Steven Spielberg.  No major events on the other networks, but this being sweeps, there are fresh episodes everywhere.

America is willing to follow FOX behind bars.

FOX:  The 2-hour launch of ALCATRAZ went very well, with a solid 3.3 that held throughout the broadcast.  That put the network squarely in 2d place for the night behind CBS's blockbuster line-up.  If the show can manage not to collapse the way Terra Nova did, FOX will be quite happy with the result.  (A renewable Alcatraz may also mean the end of at least one of Terra Nova or House, both of which are precariously on the bubble right now.)

NBC:  The nation's love affair with Betty White continues, as her 90TH BIRTHDAY SPECIAL and a preview of her reality show OFF THEIR ROCKERS did a 2.7 and 2.6, respectively.  That was good enough for 3d place, which for NBC on Mondays is a win.  Having a decent lead-in for once even helped ROCK CENTER, which hit a series high 1.3, although that still left it mired far behind its competition in the hour.

ABC:  THE BACHELOR, yet another reality franchise showing its age, was at a 2.4, 4th place in its 2 hours (although admittedly that was facing stronger competition than usual).  CASTLE held even, closer to its season low than its high.

CBS:  The other networks can throw whatever they like at the Monday night line-up, and CBS just laughs:  all its shows were within 0.2 of their last few numbers, and the network won every half-hour of the night.  The only remaining Monday question of the season is whether NBC's mega-hyped new line-up can put a dent in CBS when it premieres... when is it?  Oh right, the night after the Super Bowl.  I forget.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL, which used to have a crisp self-mocking wit that made it a guilty pleasure, continues its decline, both creatively (Blair gets religion?) and in the ratings, tying its 0.6 series low.  The latest in a seemingly endless series of HART OF DIXIE repeats (but not really--new episodes return next week) barely registered.

Tonight FOX airs new episodes of GLEE, NEW GIRL and RAISING HOPE, CW brings back 90210, and on cable, USA starts the winter part of its WHITE COLLAR season.  But the bigger event is the return of JUSTIFIED on FX, coming off a superb Season 2 but this time without spectacular villain Margo Martindale.

For CBS on Mondays, the other networks can huff and puff and put specials on the air, but they can't blow The Eye's house down.

CBS:  Against atypical competition almost across the board, all their hits were big winners, and all within 0.2 of their last original episodes.

ABC:  Their best number of the night by far was for the umpteenth repeat of 1965's A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (although its 2.8 was still way below competitor HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER with a 4.5 on CBS).  After that, a PREP AND LANDING held the Charlie Brown audience pretty well, but YOU DESERVE IT was a disastrous 1.0, and CASTLE rebounded as best it could to a 2.0, its season low.

FOX:    The AMERICAN COUNTRY AWARDS were below Terra Nova's lowest score, let alone House.  

NBC:  Must we speak of this?  NBC's average for 3 hours of primetime was a 1.0, which would be unacceptable even on a Saturday.  The number of people who didn't want to watch a SING-OFF Christmas special was exceeded only by those who wanted no part of ROCK CENTER.  And there are still 2 months of Mondays until The Voice and Smash arrive...

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL has clearly jumped the shark with a 0.6, low even by CW standards.  (We'll see if the car crash that ended the midseason finale brings people back in January.)  However, HART OF DIXIE is finding an audience, again significantly up from its lead-in.

Tonight is another December hodgepodge, with repeats on CBS against new episodes on FOX, while ABC throws Middle and Suburgatory reruns into the Dancing With the Stars Results slot, and NBC regales us with a Michael Buble Christmas special for our sins.

The only shows last night with ratings north of a 3 were reruns.

FOX:  Even with weaker competition on both CBS and ABC, TERRA NOVA couldn't climb more than 0.1 from last week's season low, and with only 2 episodes left this season (the finale is a 2-hour special), time is running out.  HOUSE didn't fare much better, also up a mere 0.1 from its season low.

ABC:  Although they didn't equal Dancing With the Stars' usual rating, a combo of the classic HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and a SHREK holiday special performed well 8-9PM.  Viewers have apparently decided that YOU DESERVE IT doesn't, and the night was rounded out by a CASTLE rerun.

CBS:  Thinking of reruns, The Eye won the night with one arm tied behind its back.  With an all-repeat lineup, CBS was victorious in every half-hour of the evening.

NBC:  The season finale of THE SING-OFF couldn't come soon enough for NBC, although it did manage to climb slightly for its last performance.  Facing repeats on the other networks, ROCK CENTER also crept up a bit.

CW:  HART OF DIXIE's 0.8 was nothing to shout about, but the fact that it marked an increase of 0.2 from the waning GOSSIP GIRL was at least a bit promising.

Don't get too attached to those CG dinosaurs.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA barely bothers with those creatures these days anyway, being more concerned with dull conspiracies among humans (points to anyone who can figure out what the "time fracture" means), and it may not be showing anything for much longer.  With just a few episodes to go and a massive budget/license fee, this isn't a good time to be matching the season's lowest rating with a paltry 2.1.  HOUSE was almost as unimpressive, also tying a season low with 2.5.

ABC:  Beginning its 2-part season finale with a 1-hour episode, DANCING WITH THE STARS should hit its best rating since the season premiere even after football adjustments.  That provided a fine set-up to the new charitable game show YOU DESERVE IT, but that debut went absolutely nowhere with a lousy 2.1.  CASTLE managed to rebound from that with what should be a fairly standard number even after football is taken into account.

NBC:  Preparing for its own season finale, THE SING-OFF pretty much shuffled in place, but ROCK CENTER, soon to move to Wednesdays, could only manage a horrible 0.9.

CBS:  What are slips of a few percentage points to mighty CBS?  Every one of its shows fell from last week, and every one of its shows won its time-slot.  (Notably, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER didn't attempt to promote the major plot twist that concluded the episode--had the show pushed that development, it may well have scored higher.)

CW:  It looks like GOSSIP GIRL's glory days are over, but it did manage to climb 0.1 from last week, taking it out of the network's cellar and tying it with HART OF DIXIE.  

Monday has become a real problem for one network and a guaranteed victory for another.

FOX:  Due to the nature of Season 1 production on TERRA NOVA, it was always clear that there wouldn't be any back-order this year.  That leaves FOX with plenty of time to think about whether to renew the show for a second season.  It's become an increasingly problematic decision, because at the show's level of license fee, a 2.3 rating is below mediocre.  (However, on a corporate level FOX owns the series--which may have strong overseas value due to its genre--and that will also figure into the decision.)  It doesn't help that creatively, the show has become sluggish and uninvolving, with minimal dinosaur action and dull plots.  As to HOUSE, reports are that the network's decision on whether to make the deals necessary to bring it back will be made sooner rather than later, so the show can build to a series finale if needed, and that's looking more likely than not right now.

CBS:  Remember the concern that with Charlie Sheen gone, 2 1/2 MEN would collapse?  The show is thriving, with last night's rating more than 30% over last season's average.  That goes for HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and MIKE & MOLLY as well, and 2 BROKE GIRLS, which has eased up on the hostility jokes and become somewhat bearable, is right up there with them.  Spring will bring more challenges with THE VOICE as competition (and SMASH up against HAWAII 5-0), but for now Monday is just about ideal for CBS.

ABC:  A clear winner in the battle of the newsmagazine "gets," the special 20/20 with Gabrielle Giffords more than doubled NBC's number at 10PM.  DANCING WITH THE STARS, while still substantially below last season, is building toward its cycle conclusion.

NBC:  Even with a nationally reported scoop, the interview with allegedly monstrous former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky that was in the media all day leading up to the show, ROCK CENTER barely moved the dial.  THE SING-OFF is counting the weeks till it can fade away.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL and HART OF DIXIE were steady, but at the low end of CW's 0.6-0.8 range, particularly bad news for Gossip.

Tonight FOX will hope that the GLEE/NEW GIRL post-baseball bleeding can heal.

The networks were mostly happy to see the Halloween in their rearview mirrors.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA got the bounce that it desperately needed:  2.6 is far from a thrilling rating and still keeps the expensive show on the bubble, but at least it's in the hunt.  HOUSE was also up, although its 2.7 won't encourage FOX to make the expensive deals it would take to bring the show back.

CBS:  All the 8-10PM shows over a 4, and a solid win for HAWAII 5-0 at 10PM.  Life is good.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS did quite well, making the drop for CASTLE (which will probably go down even further in final numbers due to the usual Dancing overrun) even more perplexing.

NBC:  The network isn't really part of the Monday conversation; it's just waiting for February, when post-Super Bowl the night will have its 2 big hopes, the return of The Voice and Smash.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL appears to be terminally down, and that's not helping HART OF DIXIE.  The network has only one more week of original episodes before it takes its customary 2-month break until January, and that kind of absence could make things even worse.

The World Series continued to have little effect on the competition, although that might change on Wednesday.

CBS:  Once adjustments are made to remove local coverage of last night's football game, the line-up should be just about where it was last week.  With the successful transition to Ashton Kutcher on 2 1/2 MEN and the hit introduction of 2 BROKE GIRLS to the line-up, CBS's Monday is a night all the other networks can only aspire to.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS wasn't able to take advantage of the male-skewing World Series on FOX (probably because it's also old-skewing), while CASTLE stayed on par.

NBC:  Next week ROCK CENTER will make its debut at 10PM, but it won't find the night a friendly one, with SING-OFF heading further down every week.  So far no one seems to care about the network's PRIME SUSPECT push, but we'll see how (if) it pays off on Thursday.

FOX:  The Series scored better than TERRA NOVA/HOUSE have been doing on Mondays, but not enough to make all the schedule turmoil worthwhile.  However, Wednesday (and especially Thursday, if there's a Game 7) may be a different story.

CW:  Some nice news for HART OF DIXIE, which outscored its GOSSIP GIRL lead-in by a third and may be finding an audience.  (Although the decline of Gossip Girl, one of the network's mainstays, is a problem.)  Next week CW will preempt both shows for Ringer reruns because their target audience often has other plans on Halloween night--however, Hart of Dixie didn't seem to have gotten the memo, since their November 7 episode is pretty clearly one that was originally aimed at Halloween.

Comparisons to last Monday may be misleading, since due to baseball overrun that night, many shows aired either out of their normal timeslots or against atypical competition.

FOX:  TERRA NOVA, for example, didn't begin until almost 9PM last week, and FOX can't be pleased that it didn't come back last night all the way to the prior week's number; it was down almost 15% from 2 weeks ago.  Making matters worse, the show will be preempted next week, either by Game 5 of the World Series or by a repeat if the Series only runs 4 games.  The network will be hoping the very expensive show can return with strength in November.  Similarly, HOUSE is still 20% off both its season premiere and last season's average.

CBS:  Even with declines since its massive premiere, 2 1/2 MEN is still running 20% ahead of last season's average.  Without having to face House in the 10PM slot, HAWAII 5-0 rebounded to where it had been 2 weeks ago.  The other sitcoms were all down a bit from 2 weeks ago, but still comfortably ahead of last season (or in the case of 2 BROKE GIRLS, steady with its hour-mate).

ABC:  Both DANCING WITH THE STARS and CASTLE returned to their levels from 2 weeks ago.  

NBC:  THE SING-OFF was actually down a sliver from 2 weeks ago.  The network's PRIME SUSPECT runs are more promo than genuine programming, and we'll find out when Suspect airs on Oct. 27 if all the effort has had any effect.

CW:  GOSSIP GIRL is still down about 30% from last season's average.  As Mitch Metcalf noted, the HART OF DIXIE number is likely inflated by Miami football viewers.

SUNDAY CABLE NOTES:  The rest of the numbers are in for Sunday's cable telecasts, and not surprisingly what was spectacularly good for AMC and THE WALKING DEAD was less positive for their direct scripted competition:  both BOARDWALK EMPIRE and DEXTER were down in the neighborhood of 20% from the previous week.  Of course, HBO and Showtime re-air their episodes all week, as well as making them available on other platforms, so this doesn't necessarily mean lasting damage to either series.  (For HOMELAND fans:  it held well against the last half-hour of the extended DEAD episode, although still significantly below its Dexter lead-in.)

Tonight ABC premieres MAN UP! and will hope LAST MAN STANDING sustains last week's strong premiere numbers to give it an effective lead-in, while CBS will continue to scrutinize the performance of UNFORGETTABLE.  

Baseball threw FOX--sorry--a curveball, but there was plenty of bad news for everyone last night.

FOX:  Since the playoff game lasted until 8:52PM eastern time, it isn't clear why FOX didn't just fill in the 8 minutes left in the hour and go straight to House at 9PM.  But for whatever reason, they ran their full schedule, and the result was the lowest-rated TERRA NOVA to date, and a terrible HOUSE number that came in 3rd place for the hour and ran (in preliminary ratings) 40% off last week's season premiere.  Also, a lot of angry DVR users.

ABC:  As Mitch Metcalf has noted, the current ABC number is illusory, because it includes the hugely inflated rating for Detroit, which was actually watching ESPN's football coverage.  But ABC fans should cherish these numbers while they last, because even with the inflation, DANCING WITH THE STARS was only even with last week, and CASTLE was down almost 10%.  So there isn't any good news coming.

NBC:  Can you say "catastrophe"?  THE SING-OFF actually found a way to go down more than 20% from last week, and only close friends of Maria Bello watched the repeat of PRIME SUSPECT.  It's worth noting that post-football, NBC expects Monday to be its marquee night of the week, with The Voice leading into Smash.  They're certainly not doing anything to prepare the way.

CBS:  Even The Network of Stability took a hit last night.  The only drop that amounted to more than a blip, though, was the near-20% decline for HAWAII 5-0--but that show had a good excuse, as it was facing unscheduled competition from House.  

CW:  The network sells its advertising on the basis of Woman 18-34 rather than the Adults 18-49s that the other broadcast networks use, but still:  the fact is that CW is still being outrated by many cable networks (which have the benefit of subscription fees to supplement their ad revenues).  Last night, GOSSIP GIRL was down more than 30% from last season's average, and it's not clear how the economics of the network can continue to work this way.

The news was mostly good for the networks last night--except for the one show whose news was fatal.

FOX:  If anything, FOX seems to have been the victim of its own hype this fall.  Like The X-Factor, TERRA NOVA is looking like a solid hit--just not the blockbuster the network foretold.  Its 100% retention of the premiere's 3.1 rating (slightly adjusted from Mitch Metcalf's ratings report) is exceptional, and it looks likely to be one of the highest-rated new hours of the season.  HOUSE's return was extremely solid, equal to last year's season average.  

CBS:  From 8-10PM, every show on the network's schedule--including newbie 2 BROKE GIRLS--rated a 4.3 or higher, which these days is amazing. (And even at 10PM, HAWAII 5-0 may have dipped a bit from that lofty level, but still easily won its hour.)  2 1/2 MEN's decline this week to a 6.1 continues to show the aftereffects of its gigantic premiere, but even if it fell some more, it would still be a smash. 

NBC:  This is how you find out you're about to be cancelled:  at the end of THE PLAYBOY CLUB last night, the network didn't run a promo for the following week's episode, substituting one for Wednesday's SVU instead.  With THE SING-OFF's 1.8 anchoring the night (and by "anchor," I mean pulling it down to the bottom of the ocean), NBC is pretty much throwing in the towel on Mondays for the fall:  the reruns of PRIME SUSPECT that will run in Playboy's slot for the next 3 weeks will barely show a pulse, and while the new Brian Williams newsmagazine should do better, there's a ceiling on the kind of rating a show in that genre is likely to get.  They'll wait for the return of THE VOICE and debut of SMASH after the Super Bowl to do battle for the night.

ABC:  DANCING WITH THE STARS is down a colossal 35% from last year (the casting people at the network have to be scrambling for big names they can put into the spring cycle), so CASTLE's 10% decline from last season's average is nothing to complain about.

CW:  The people who watched HART OF DIXIE's premiere clearly liked it, as the rating stayed rock-solid just like Terra Nova's.  Of course, staying rock-solid at a 0.8 isn't the same as doing it at 3.1, but the network could hardly ask more of the show than its improvement on GOSSIP GIRL's lead-in.

One network dominated all of primetime last night...

FOX:  ...and it wasn't FOX.  You can't call TERRA NOVA a disaster--a 3.1 rating (slightly adjusted from Mitch Metcalf's report) is a decent number these days, and the show did hold its audience solidly through all of the 2-hour premiere--but given the massive hype, not to mention the expense, it's a crushing disappointment.  (Read our Pilot + 1 Review.)  After a summer of giant special effects movies, were viewers tired of spectacle?  Are dinosaurs just out of style?  The FOX executives will be pondering all of that this morning, and waiting for the numbers to settle post-premiere before making any decisions.  But this is an awfully costly show (thirteen Executive Producers) for a mediocre rating.

CBS:  All hail the Eye!  The CBS Monday line-up is starting to look distinctly Must-See-TVish, as every one of its sitcoms did a terrific number last night.  HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (which had a vintage episode last night) was 25% above last year's season average, and 2 BROKE GIRLS (which I simply don't get, but good for Kat Dennings--see our Pilot + 1 Review) built on its lead; then 2 1/2 MEN, even post-premiere event, took things to a new level with a spectacular 7.2, and MIKE & MOLLY held an excellent chunk of that lead-in.  HAWAII 5-0 mostly looked good because of its fading competition, but a 3.3 is nothing to sneeze at in the 10PM slot.

NBC:  The hole just gets deeper.  With PLAYBOY CLUB slumping to a terrible 1.3, the advice here is not to get too emotionally attached.  (Take a look at our Pilot + 1 Review.)   And while SING-OFF's 1.7 was comparatively less awful, it's still mired in 4th place with nowhere to go.  The signature decision of NBC's fall may have been holding off the network's powerhouse pair of The Voice and Smash till winter--they have to be wondering now if they chose right.

ABC:  A 3.2 is a decent enough rating, and and second place for the night isn't bad, but DANCING WITH THE STARS is officially having an off-cycle, and the network will need to bring in an extremely strong cast for Spring (especially against The Voice) to avoid damaging the brand.  Castle did perfectly well holding its lead.

CW:  HART OF DIXIE not only held all of its GOSSIP GIRL lead-in, the show even built in its second half-hour, so it did all the network could have asked in its premiere.  It's just hard to get excited about a 0.8 debut.  With the arrival of Dixie, all of the CW's shows except its Thursday line-up are below a 1, and only Vampire Diaries remains able to launch a new show.  Not good.