ABC/MATT KLITSCHERMonday TV's Big Winner, Besides Melissa, er, No, Wait, Molly: Indecision! Muddle-headed Jason Mesnick led The Bachelor to its most watched season finale (15.5 million, preliminary Nielsen estimates showed) since cold-footed Bob Guiney couldn't quite pop the question to Estella Gardinier in 2003. The numbers for The Bachelor: After the Final Rose, where the Mednick mess got messy, were off the charts: the seven-year-old franchise's biggest post-finale special in viewers (17 million) and adults 18-49.
No, That's Not Embarrassing at All: Bachelor viewership peaked in the 10 p.m. half-hour, also known as the part of the night where Melissa Rycroft got dumped in between commercials for vacuum cleaners.
Who Says Guys Aren't Romantics? At 10 p.m., men 18-49 favored the carnage of After the Final Rose to the corpses of CSI: Miami (13.3 million viewers overall).
Melissa Wasn't the Night's Only Casualty: With The Bachelor dominating and CBS' comedies back from a rerun break, a two-hour 24 fell to third in viewers (11.1 million) and in the demo from 8-10 p.m. In the 9 p.m. hour, Heroes ran fourth, or last, in viewers (7 million) and in the demo among the big four networks. At 10 p.m., Medium (7.3 million) got crushed, especially among women.
On the Bright Side of Disappointment: Compared to last week, Heroes was up in viewers; 24 wasn't down by much; Medium was, well, yeah, pretty much crushed.
Etc.: Big Bang Theory (10.9 million) and How I Met Your Mother (11.1 million) were their usual strong selves. Two and a Half Men (15.4 million) came the closest to upending The Bachelor. The season premiere of Rules of Engagement (11.9 million) made Worst Week look pretty bad—the former comedy was up about 35 percent over the latter comedy's season average in the demo.