Big Monday for Dancing, Mother, but Not Heroes

First half of Dancing with the Stars finale packs in 21.3 mil; How I Met Your Mother hits season high; Heroes in the tank

Monday was good to Dancing With the Stars and How I Met Your Mother. Not so much for Heroes.

The first part of Dancing's fall season finale was as big as the show's season opener, with 21.3 million viewers, up 1.7 million from last week, Nielsen estimates said.

CBS' Mother scored with a season-high 10.1 million, the network said. Its companion comedy, The Big Bang Theory, continued to blow up, clicking with a series-best 10.2 million.

On NBC, Heroes' heroes lost their powers. The struggling show itself held steady, with 7.8 million viewers, about even with last week. On the downside, it ran third among adults 18-49 from 9-10 p.m. 

The CW's One Tree Hill (2.2 million) has drawn bigger crowds (it even ran fourth among women 18-34), as has Fox's lineup, which wasn't competitive with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (4.6 million) and Prison Break (5.2 million).