Not a Creature Was Stirring, Except to Watch 'House'

Even Carol Burnett couldn't save a lumpy old "Mattress" on ABC. (By Chris Helcermanas-benge -- Abc)

Sentimental holiday viewers gobbled up procedural crime dramas like sugarplums last week. Here's a look at the week's naughty and nice:

WINNERS

CBS. Finished first for the 13th week in a row -- last week with nine of the week's top 10 shows, including seven procedural crime dramas. Packed with the most procedurals, the network has bagged the largest average audience every week this season.

"The Sound of Music." Owing to the millions of women between the ages of 18 and 54 who are at home Saturday nights and who have not yet tired of watching the von Trapp Family out do-re-mi the Nazis, ABC copped the largest audience of the evening -- and its most watched Saturday of the season to date.

"House." As we pause to count our blessings this holiday season, let us remember that Fox's excuse to watch Hugh Laurie for an hour each week clocked 14.7 million viewers on Tuesday of last week -- more than double the crowd Laurie attracted on the same night last year.

LOSERS

"Once Upon a Mattress." ABC's remake of the remake of the remake of the Broadway retelling of that old Princess and the Pea fairy tale, starring ratings magnet Carol Burnett as evil Queen Aggravain and ratings poison Tracey Ullman as a forty-something Princess Winnifred the Woebegone, died mightily in the network's old "Wonderful World of Disney" Sunday time slot to the tune of just 8.4 million viewers. (This season, "America's Funniest Home Videos" has averaged more than 9 million viewers and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" a whopping 15.6 million in that same block of time.) Later that night, CBS's latest installment of its annual Christmas treacleflick, "The Christmas Blessing" -- sequel to hit 2002 Christmas treacleflick "The Christmas Shoes" -- delivered a hefty 13.9 million viewers.

Elton John. The NBC special "Elton John: Red Piano" got beaten in its time slot by a rerun of CBS's "King of Queens." Oh, the irony.

"The Amazing Race." That whole "family" thing didn't go so well for CBS's "Amazing Race" finale; fewer than 12 million bothered to watch the wrap-up -- "AR's" smallest finale crowd in more than two years.

"The Apprentice." Fourth edition of The Donald's NBC reality series cashed out with just under 13 million viewers on Thursday -- compared with 14 million for "TA3," nearly 17 million for "TA2" and 28 million who watched "The Apprentice" that started it all. Meanwhile Martha Stewart's version of "The Apprentice" fell, in its penultimate episode, to a series low 5.7 million viewers.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: CBS's "CSI," "NCIS," "CSI: New York," "Without a Trace," Criminal Minds" and "Cold Case," Fox's "House," CBS's "Two and a Half Men," the CBS Sunday flick "A Christmas Blessing" and CBS's "CSI: Miami."