TV Ratings: "Grey's Anatomy" (Season 4)

ABC's blockbuster medical soap "Grey's Anatomy" lost some ratings muscle in its fourth season. Take a look at how MerDer and the other love-stricken and sex-crazed docs at Seattle Grace did in the Nielsens, after the jump.

The Shonda Rhimes-penned series which launched on Sunday nights in the spring of 2005 (leading out of "Desperate Housewives") gradually became a hit, reaching its series high in February 2006 with the first part of the amazing Super Bowl "bomb episode."

That success led to the show's move to Thursday nights in the fall of 2006 where it successfully battled CBS' well-established procedural "CSI" with an average of 19.22 million viewers tuning in (the infamous Mer after-life episode was seen by over 27 million people in February 2007).

But a somewhat gloomy tone of the third season, the writers' focus on the new spin-off "Private Practice" and behind-the-scenes drama with Isaiah Washington's homophobic incident, may have put a dent in the show's ratings.

This year's writers' strike and the show's 3-month long winter absence didn't help. "Grey's Anatomy" lost an average of 3 million viewers this year, falling down to 15.92 million (for the season September 24, 2007 - May 25, 2008, including repeat broadcasts).

Here's how the individual all-new episodes did:

Sep. 27 - 20.90 million
Oct. 04 - 18.51 million
Oct. 11 - 19.04 million
Oct. 18 - 18.04 million
Oct. 25 - 18.17 million
Nov. 01 - 19.30 million
Nov. 08 - 19.50 million
Nov. 15 - 19.60 million
Nov. 22 - 14.11 million
Dec. 06 - 17.78 million
Jan. 10 - 17.68 million
Apr. 24 - 16.37 million
May. 01 - 15.31 million
May. 08 - 16.03 million
May. 15 - 15.55 million
May. 22 - 18.09 million

The season premiere episode scored season-high ratings for the show. The 2-hour May 22 season finale was almost 3 million viewers weaker. The Thanksgiving episode on November 22 scored season (or series?) low of only 14.11 million viewers.

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