, a look at the top performers since 2001-02 using numbers that are adjusted for historical decline. The table simply looks at the top
is the number of years since 2001-02... so with each yearly update, each list will get one entry longer. There are some pithy notes about many of the seasons below the table. The chart you can activate at the bottom chronicles the top single performer within each year.
1. One of the great thrill rides in TV ratings history, season one of
Empire started big (a 3.8 or 226 Plus for the series premiere) and got bigger almost every week thereafter. The 11-week run culminated with a two-hour finale pulling 6.1/6.9 (or a 363/410 Plus).
2. Before there was
Empire, the smashing first season of
Desperate Housewives was the gold standard in post-premiere growth. Its 8.9 series premiere ended up being the second-lowest point of the season, ahead of only the second episode. It grew for four straight weeks after that, mostly settled for awhile from there, then shot up to a series high 13.4 (329 Plus) for the season finale in May.
3.
This Is Us' first season was a story of consistency rather than weekly eye-poppers; it held onto a mid-2's, megahit-level audience pretty much the whole way. At the very end, it finally caught some real fire, tying its series high with a 3.0 and setting a new one for the 3.4 (278 Plus) finale.
4. The spin-off of
The Big Bang Theory had easily the most impressive premiere for a new comedy in A18-49+ history (349), six weeks before the premiere in its regular Thursday timeslot. It hovered close enough to the 200 mark on Thursday and comfortably became the biggest new comedy season of the era.
5. ABC's breakout fall 2004 Sunday lineup never quite felt whole with modest performer
Boston Legal rounding out the night. They quickly remedied that at midseason with newbie
Grey's Anatomy. It started at a 7.2, a point and a half better than anything
Legal did. It was almost all uphill from there, ending with a 9.8 on the night
Desperate Housewives had its series high 13.4 finale.
6. Sure hope you like NBC Thursday sitcoms that got dragged onto this list by their huge lead-ins!
Leap of Faith premiered in the spring and lasted just six episodes. The middle two took a big dip airing after
Friends repeats, and there was no rally for the last two when
Friends returned to originals.
7. On the night that Ashton Kutcher's
Two and a Half Men debut popped to a 10.7, CBS wisely used it to lead into a new series.
2 Broke Girls opened there with a 7.1 (the biggest series premiere Plus in the era till
Young Sheldon came along), then moved to a hammock between
How I Met Your Mother and
Two and a Half Men, setting up the most potent night of comedy since the end of Must See TV.
8. ABC's decision to give an entire night over to Shonda Rhimes dramas worked out swimmingly, as
How to Get Away with Murder became one of the most impressive 10/9c performers since
ER. Thanks to its shorter season, it actually had a higher season average than lead-in
Scandal (171), though it usually dropped a bit from
Scandal when they were together.
9. The fall 2001
Friends lead-out would have beaten out
Leap if it didn't have to endure three holiday burn-off airings; it averaged a 197 in its first six episodes. Both
Schwartz and
Leap of Faith left four episodes unaired.
10. ABC's 2004 comeback came on multiple fronts. Sunday was flashier, but the groundbreaking drama
Lost put up surprisingly huge numbers leading off Wednesday. Thanks to a hot stretch in the mid-section of the season, it ended up with an average (6.9) higher than its series premiere rating (6.8), like
Desperate and
Grey's.
12. ABC might have just been hoping for good
Dancing with the Stars retention out of this fall 2017 newbie, but they got a show that built significantly on
DWTS. It premiered at a 200 Plus and stayed north of 150 for almost the entire fall.
13. The most successful of the
Lost imitators in the mid-aughts, it combined with
Deal or No Deal to make for one of the few bright spots in NBC's post-
Friends collapse. It hung very close to its 5.9 premiere in the first month, then took off into the 6's for most of the rest of the season.
14.
The Blacklist is still the gold standard for the post-
Voice timeslot on NBC Monday.
It settled around 3.0 in the fall, still managed mid-2's for three episodes during
The Voice's hiatus, and got back to high-2's in the spring portion.
15. This time it's not an inflated
Friends lead-out, but an inflated
Will & Grace lead-out. And
Coupling made it just four episodes, in a fast plummet from 7.7 to 4.9.
16. Though not quite as big as the megahit mothership,
CSI: Miami became one of the last truly dominant 10:00 dramas, hovering in the general vicinity of 7.0 for most of its freshman season.
17. Unlike the other weak NBC comedy lead-outs, this one (another
Will & Grace lead-out) actually got a full season and even a renewal! But a move to Tuesday after
Frasier for season two didn't work out, and half of that season's order was left unaired.
18. Paired with the second season of
The X-Files revival,
9-1-1 quickly upstaged its lead-in. The 1.8 premiere was
only a 162 Plus, but the show held incredibly close to that level all season (never going lower than 140).
*- I am missing one point for each of these two shows, and estimating it based on the household rating/viewership. Taking an average of just what I have,
Inside Schwartz would average a 178 and
Good Morning, Miami a 153. (Those are the numbers I've used before on the
New Shows Post.) It's at least conceivable
Miami could be far enough off that it ties its fellow 2002-03 Miami-set series. It seems very unlikely a holiday episode of
Inside Schwartz did well enough to keep it ahead of
Murder.
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