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Mockingbird Lane, Nikita, The Tuesday Comedy Deathmatch – This Week In TV Ratings

Jamie Wotton writes for Bleeding Cool.

A special presentation, the return of ABC comedies and politics. We live in exciting TV times so let's get to it.

Another Presidential Debate on Monday meant there was little of anything else airing. Still, The Voice won the 8PM hour, of course. The serious issue at hand is why do TV networks think we should be watching silly things like presidential debates when they could be showing us excellent shows like Alcatraz, Terra Nova, Mob Doctor…

Second thought: could we have presidential debates every Monday, please?

The Comedy Deathmatch on Tuesday has, I think, finally kicked into high gear and it's pretty insane. FOX, NBC and ABC are all competing with their  young-skewing half-hours. New Girl was easily the champ of the  evening, as always with it's reliable 2.7. With Happy Endings  coming in second with a much much lower 1.8. The success of New Girl is really quite something. It's a fantastic show, but so are so many on this evening and it's interesting that people keep going back to their faves.

Following Endings' less-than-spectacular-but-somewhat-okay premiere at 9PM on ABC, Don't Trust The B—- In Apartment 23  returned to a decent-ish 1.7.

Both these shows were successes, relatively speaking, because of Modern Family last year, and it's good to see them hold their own evening down. I hope they stay consistent and stick  around for a while longer. Together, they make up one of the funniest hours on TV right now.

NBC's Tuesday comedy line-up of Go On (2.4) and The New Normal  (1.7) are continuing to do quite well for the net. I mean, why not –  it is the No. 1 network after all. So, so weird.

On Wednesday, Arrow continues to fall, but is still doing well for  itself. It's still one of the highest rated things on The CW with a 1.1, and I can't seeing it dropping much more, but we'll wait and see. I still think it's cool to have a proper superhero show on weekly basis. It's different to Smallville,  it feels like a superhero show. And that's pretty cool, even if  the show isn't tops right now.

ABC's second night of comedy remained much stronger, with a hilarious drop-off for the critically panned alien-in-the- suburbs laugher The Neighbors. The night went like this: The  Middle (2.5), The Neighbors (2.0), Modern Family (4.9),  Suburgatory (2.7).

Meanwhile on Thursday, Last Resort is sadly waning and hit a series low of 1.3. No question, the show is dead. I could see a world where it hung around if it was a few tenths higher, but ABC can't do anything with an expensive show that gets a 1.3.

Fridays, especially for NBC, are pretty remarkable. They begin the night this week with a Special Presentation, airing the bright and creepy world of The Munsters reimagined as Mockingbird Lane. The Bryan Fuller-scripted, Bryan Singer-directed pilot which may (but not really, let's be honest) have a chance of becoming a series did enough that I could see NBC ordering a couple of scripts. Perhaps. Genre does well for networks, apparently. Mockingbird Lane garnered a 1.5 over the course, with Grimm in the 9PM skyrocketing even higher to a rating good for mid-week, a 1.9.

Over on The CW, Nikita's scores got even worse with it falling down a 0.2. Awfully tragic.

On Sunday, Once Upon a Time pulled a 3.4 for ABC – the highest number I've had to type all day. Over on Fox, Revenge turned in a 2.7 and The Good Wife a 1.8. It's soap night, really, with or without the fairy tale trappings.

CBS managed a 1.8 showing for The Mentalist and 1.6 for 666 Park Avenue. Why weren't these people having a Walking Dead party? It's Halloween week and everything.

You might be asking yourself now, what did I learn this week? The answer is clear… Not the meaning of life. Actually, yes, yes you did. Now go be sad because TV is all there is.

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