Dancing With the Stars Breaks a Leg; House Breaks Down?

Jennifer Grey-, Bristol Palin-powered DWTS scores biggest premiere-night audience; House sheds millions of viewers

By Joal Ryan Sep 21, 2010 7:55 PMTags
Hugh Laurie, House, Bristol Palin, DWTS, Daniel Dae Kim, Hawaii Five 0Adam Taylor/FOX; Adam Larkey/ABC; Neil Jacobs/CBS

Dancing With the Stars did fine wit h Bristol Palin (and without Kate Gosselin). Hawaii Five-0 did a credible David Caruso. And, uh-oh, House did not look well.

A TV-ratings rundown from last night's premiere-packed premiere night:

Dancing With the Stars (21 million viewers, per prelim estimates): The only surprise here was how affecting Jennifer Grey's performance was—and how well the show hung onto its Gosselin-goosed audience. DWTS was up 3.5 million viewers from last fall's opener (and down less than that from last spring's once-in-a-TV-lifetime Gosselin mess).

Two and a Half Men (14.5 million): What did Charlie Sheen's domestic-violence case mean to his long-running sitcom? One million more viewers!

• CBS' other comedies: The non-Two and a Half Men shows were all down a bit from last fall, meaning Mike & Molly (12.2 million) wasn't quite The Big Bang Theory, Rules of Engagement (8.3 million) wasn't quite Accidentally on Purpose and How I Met Your Mother (8.8 million) wasn't quite itself.

Hawaii Five-0 (13.8 million): The newbie inherited CSI: MIami's old time slot—and its audience. It was exactly even with last fall's Miami premiere. Which is not a bad thing.

The Event (11.2 million): Great start for the Lost-ian new drama.

Castle (11.2 million): Bigger than last fall, but, small quibble, not big enough to beat CSI: Miami, er, Hawaii Five-0 at 10 p.m.

House (10.5 million): The good news for the Fox show is that its seventh-season opener was watched by enough of the right people. The alarming news is that, overall, it was down 6 million viewers—6 million!—from last fall's opener.

Chase (7.9 million): And this is where NBC not having The Jay Leno Show at 10 p.m. pays off. By this time last fall, Leno was already in freefall. By comparison, this freshman series was up by more than 2 million viewers.  

Chuck (6.1 million): The weak link in the rebuilding NBC's night. 

Lone Star (4.1 million): Call it Alone Star.

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Watch the fall season develop at Watch With Kristin.