Scoring its best performance ever in adults 18-49, the season premiere of "Glee" led Fox to ratings victory on the first Tuesday of the new fall season. Some of the night's highlights:
• Fox received more good news from its new comedy block at 9 p.m., with "Raising Hope" rising 24 percent above the time-period benchmark established by "So You Think You Can Dance" on the same week last year. "Hope" scored a 3.1/8 and 7.5 million viewers. At 9:30, the premiere of "Running Wilde" was up 4 percent over "So You Think You Can Dance" with a 2.5/7 and 5.9 million viewers.
• CBS finished in second place, with the season premiere of "NCIS" averaging a 3.9/11 and 18.3 million viewers, down 19 percent from last season's debut. The spin-off "NCIS: Los Angeles" averaged a 3.2/9 and 14.7 million viewers at 10 p.m., down 27 percent from the networks time-period performance from the same Tuesday last year.
• ABC finished in third place, with "Dancing With the Stars" (18.3 million viewers and a 4.3/12 demo performance) matching its 2009 bar. At 10 p.m., the debut of new Michael Imperioli crime drama "Detroit 1-8-7" scored a 2.4/6 and 9.8 million viewers — down 8 percent from ABC's quickly forgotten 2009 drama "The Forgotten."
• NBC's premiere week didn't get any better Wednesday. "The Biggest Loser" endured its worst premiere ever, dropping 24 percent from last year's debut with a 2.9/8 and 2.9 million viewers. At 10 p.m., "The Parenthood" dropped 11 percent in its second week to a 2.4/7 and 5.9 million viewers. Although in both cases, the year-ago "Loser" premiere and this year's "Parenthood" ran against much light competition.
