CBS should take it from me, an 18 year old viewer, and be happy with the 5.9 million more viewers NCIS has over House, and maybe look at House’s erratic ratings, which is likely the result the difficulty of juggling so many characters.

I only just started watching the show in reruns during the summer of 2007 and at first I found it only mildly entertaining. I’ve tried to watch some of the other procedurals but they bore me to tears about halfway through and I find the acting to be lacking in some of them as well. But NCIS is very different, and it’s one of those shows that you have to see several times to really “get it.” The humor is the obvious difference, but I don’t think it’s the most important difference. The characters are people you come to care about more each week. I don’t tune in to see them solve a crime, although that part of the show can be interesting. But I really tune in to see what new things I’m going to learn about the characters each week. (Dinozzo for example comes across at first as just an immature frat boy, but if you actually watch the whole series it becomes apparent that he is much more competent than he acts like he is and is probably the most complicated of all, except possibly Gibbs). The characters are multi-layered and complex and they are like a family. I want to know more about them every week and I want to see them interact with each other. Each week the show gives you some tidbits and you keep wanting to come back for more. NCIS seems to have perfected this the past few seasons and that is why the ratings are defying convention and going up instead of down.

I think a lot of people don’t take the show seriously because of the humor, or they discount it as an “older person’s show,” but I don’t think this assumption does the show justice. The producer’s of the show understand their audience and know how to keep them coming back.

I still say the best thing CW could do is grab an NFL like deal. Get people to accept it as a legit network.

Futon Critic says CW *will* air two episodes of Privileged (12/1 & 12/8) following Gossip Girl.

http://www.futoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7843

Also, while a 4.0 demo is probably not much out of 19 million viewers. it’s still more than most 8pm shows on CBS get. Plus, CBS wouldn’t risk leaving it’s best new show hanging like that. Anyone really think The Mentalist can do 16 million viewers on its own?

Ben, everything we hear about “remote free” for Fringe is that it’s working and advertisers are happy. It would seem almost everyone who watches the show watches the commercials.

I would also suggest watching the Yellow Fever Supernatural episode. Dean’s girly scream still has me laughing. And the Eye of the Tiger at the end is already a hit on Youtube.

Julia, but there are differences. Some shows do better and some do much worse. There are shows that I believe a lot watch same day, about 20 minutes after the shows start so they can skip commercials.