While loyal Smallville fans tuned in to see the Green Arrow continue on his quest for redemption, Dollhouse and Ugly Betty viewers dropped from down from last week. It’s a shame to see the DH drop as last night’s episode was arguably the best episode of the season, if not the series. As for Betty, I’m as guilty as everyone else who watched the premiere last week but didn’t tune in last night. My only excuse? I forgot it was on. Thanks to TiVo, I’m watching it now but I really hope ABC rethinks tucking this excellent series away on Friday nights. Ugly Betty isn’t a Friday-night show!
The Hollywood Reporter posted the numbers for last night’s TV shows, stating that CBS won the night with Ghost Whisperer (8.5 million viewers, 2.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) and Medium (8.4 million, 2.2) showing slight increases in their ratings from last week. Numbers maintained their numbers (heh) and all three shows won their hours.
NBC came in second with Law & Order taking in 7.2 million viewrs and, without baseball to compete with, Leno was up 17%, bringing in 6.1 million viewers from last week’s series low. ABC took the bronze medal with their season premiere of Supernanny earning 4.7 million viewers. Ugly Betty was down 14% with just 4.5 million viewers last night. I’m hoping that the DVR numbers will give Betty a boost but it’d be better if ABC found a better place for the show in their primetime lineup.
That’s the good news (if you care about any of those shows). For those of us who are hoping to see Dollhouse make a miraculous comeback in the ratings, the news is bad. The series dropped 20% from the episode that aired two weeks ago, earning 2.1 million viewers. As Dollhouse does see a sizable boost once the DVR ratings are posted, that should help but still, a drop in the ratings doesn’t look good for the series that’s going on hiatus for a month and will return in December with back-to-back episodes on Friday nights. To those of you who DVR’ed last night’s episode, definitely watch it! It’s easily my favorite episode of the series so far.
Smallville fans will be happy to know that last night’s episode matched the previous week’s numbers, bringing in 2.5 million viewers, which is a season high for the series. That ties the CW with ABC for third place in the ratings for 8 o’clock. That’s a pretty big deal, considering we’re talking about The CW here and it doesn’t say much for Fox, which aired new episodes of Brothers and ’Til Death.
