Ratings Five-Spot, WE 11/28/10: DWTS, Skating with the Stars, Mike & Molly, Glee, Modern Family

Here's your TV Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending November 28, 2010:

Dancing with the Stars - The ABC competition reality program has had a very strong cycle throughout and ended on a particularly high note, with both the final Monday performance show and the two-hour Tuesday finale up 23% year-to-year. The 5.3 for the finale was the show's highest finale number since fall 2007. The year-to-year momentum will be tough to maintain this spring, since the fall cycle in 2009 was relatively weak, but it's certainly possible. Especially if the Lindsay Lohan rumors come to fruition.

Skating with the Stars - ABC's latest attempt to fill Mondays between the end of Dancing and the beginning of The Bachelor seemed to get off to a pretty bad start when it managed only a 2.4 demo out of the 4.9 for DWTS' final performance show. But we didn't know how bad till its first whirl leading off the night got a rather awful 1.2 (preliminary) on Monday of the current week. I noted earlier that the cast looked unappealing to me, and apparently I wasn't alone.

Mike & Molly - Mike & Molly hit a series high 4.0 demo last Monday, notable on a few levels beyond just the series high. First, it became just the second new show this season to crack the 4.0 plateau (joining the $#*! My Dad Says premiere). It also became the very first new show this season to post a rating higher than its premiere number. It's pretty amazing that we got into late November before that happened at all, but here we are, and in this awful year for new shows (at least ratings-wise), this one deserves a nod.

Glee - Maybe it was just the long holiday weekend, or maybe it's the show; we'll know more when Tuesday ratings come out today. But it's worth noting that the typically stout Glee had a particularly bad result last week. Its 4.0 demo was more than a half point lower than any other result this season, and its 5.2 W18-34 number was almost a point and a half behind the rest of the season. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving isn't typically known for being quite as weak HUT-wise, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Modern Family - This show also hit by far a season low, but my outlook on it is more positive because it came on Thanksgiving Eve, where the HUT levels on the night more definitely do play a role. The show was up nearly 50% from last year's Thanksgiving Eve original and, at a 3.7, its result was the highest-rated episode of TV on a Thanksgiving Eve since Criminal Minds posted a 3.8 in 2007.

More Five-Spots can be found in the Index.