TV Ratings: Monday Night Shows Bounce Back

Monday night shows have bounced back from last week's truly hideous results, but many of them are still doing much worse than earlier this season or at the same time last year. "Dancing with the Stars" remained the evening's top show with 17,88 million viewers.

The extended edition of the dancing competition which ran for 1 hour and 45 minutes actually averaged 18,46 million viewers during the first 90 minutes, the typical format for its Monday night episode. Its lead-out "The Bachelor" added half a million viewers (9,47 million.)

TV's top comedy "Two and a Half Men" on CBS (13,65 million) and lead-out "The King of Queens" (12,99 million) again managed to beat NBC's "Heroes" (11,92 million) which was on a par with last week's somewhat disappointing ratings. FOX's "24" meanwhile recovered from last week's series low (10,92 million.)

Unlike the 9 p.m. sitcoms, CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" and "Old Christine" (7,27 million each) seem to be in trouble. Although they added viewers this week, they are still at normally unacceptable levels for the #1 network CBS which announces its new schedule in 2 weeks' time.

Finally, "The Real Wedding Crashers" is officially a dud bleeding to 6,01 viewers in week #2. NBC should consider either returning "Medium" into the timeslot, or relocating "Friday Night Lights" (it did well in the timeslot in its one airplay in October) or putting a new show more compatible with "Heroes" ("The Bionic Woman" pilot comes to mind.)

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