Ratings Five-Spot, WE 2/6/11 - Parks & Recreation/Fringe, The Defenders, Who Do You Think You Are?, Super Bowl/Glee, The Chicago Code

Here's your Ratings Five-Spot for the week ending February 6, 2011:

Parks & Recreation/Fringe - Both of these much-hyped returns looked good out of the gate and kept the hype machines at almost full force for week two. Then came the week three drop. Parks hit a 2.4 demo, down 25% from the two-weeks-ago premiere and worryingly retaining less than two-thirds of the Office demo. Fringe got a 1.9 its first two weeks but (perhaps with the return of Supernatural factoring in) dropped off three tenths in its third Friday ep. I'd say if they're not in danger yet, they're getting close.

The Defenders - The total viewer numbers were deceptive with The Defenders' Friday premiere; believe in the 8.7 million, and it might look like CBS has another Friday hit. But the adults 50+ don't pay the bills, and at a 1.3 A18-49 rating, the show joined Friday behind what axed-in-season Medium was doing most weeks. (It ended its season with a 1.36 average.) Not to mention CBS was still pulling 2.0+ in this hour last year. These numbers won't fly, but the show has another couple months to try to build.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Speaking of 1.3's on Friday night... the second season of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? debuted in pretty poor fashion as well. I'm giving it the mediocre shade of blue because it's NBC and it's a cheaper reality program and it's Friday, so maybe it can stick around if it maintains about the 1.3? The number's down 19% from the series premiere last March but up from last May's finale. And in another sign of the increasingly ancient skew of Friday, it was actually a series high in viewers.

Super Bowl XLV and Glee - My rundown of Super Bowl/Glee facts yesterday goes into much greater detail than I can in this little space, but here's the quick summary: Super Bowl was the most-watched thing in the history of ever (up 4% in viewers, 3% in demos from last year), while Glee had fairly "meh" raw numbers by lead-out standards and pretty bad retention percentages. The true question for Glee is whether it grows as a result of this (most shows don't), and we'll get some answer to that question later today.

The Chicago Code - Rounding out this Grim Reapery edition of the Ratings Five-Spot is the debut of The Chicago Code, whose 2.4 demo is a bit of a disappointment considering all the Super Bowl promotion and the fact that lead-in House was at season-high levels. (Though I did sorta see this coming during the game...) I won't count it out entirely, as the premiere number is still better than all but one Lie to Me in the hour this season and obviously worlds better than Lone Star, but it's not a very good starting place.

More Five-Spots in the Index.