No Vote of Confidence in 'Commander in Chief'

Geena Davis as ABC's "Commander in Chief" isn't very compelling viewing these days, ratings show. (By Kent Eanes -- Associated Press)

After seven months off the air, ABC's fantasy White House drama, "Commander in Chief," crawled back to the prime-time lineup Thursday.

A mere 8.2 million watched the much-ballyhooed -- by the media anyway, if not ABC -- return.

That's the show's smallest audience ever and exactly half the crowd that caught its enormously successful unveiling last fall.

Since then, so much has happened to our little-hen-in-the-Oval-Office-and-all-her-little-chicks series.

After broadcasting just a couple of episodes, ABC gave the hook to creator and show runner Rod Lurie, reportedly because he was trying to be a one-man band and causing production to get further and further behind (ka-ching!), but there were also reports that ABC suits weren't thrilled with the focus of future first family episodes.

So ABC and Touchstone TV -- which produces "CiC" and which, like ABC, is owned by Disney -- looked around to see who could take over the show. Their gaze landed on Steven Bochco, with whom Touchstone had recently signed one of those boffo overhead deals.

Bochco, who has never seen a note with helpful suggestions from a network suit that he didn't toss, was given the job.

He immediately began to turn the show on its head and it went into deep hiatus, while CBS, having noticed how well "CiC" initially did in the Tuesday 9 p.m. hour, moved in the like-minded fantasy drama "The Unit" and sopped up its viewers.

Next, ABC and Touchstone dumped Bochco and replaced him with one of the show's writer-producers, who began to undo what Bochco had done, and ABC announced it will move "CiC" from Tuesdays at 9 to Thursdays at 10.

Now you're up to speed.

So last Thursday night, "CiC" came back and hardly anybody noticed. Though, in fairness, it did build on its "American Inventor" lead-in by about 1 million viewers. And, in fairness, it did cop nearly a million more viewers in its hour than newsmag "Primetime" has averaged there of late.

And, though it got stomped by CBS's "Without a Trace," which posted nearly 19 million viewers in the hour, "CiC" managed to beat a rerun of NBC's "ER," only these days, that's saying so little.

But there's no getting around the fact that 8.2 million is the series's smallest audience yet, and what with ABC suits getting ready to pound out next fall's schedule, things are not looking good for our Nell.

The show's previous smallest-ever audience was the 10.4 million it copped in its last performance in January, when it struggled against "American Idol."

Which logged more than 38 million viewers that night.