Precocious '5th Grader' Disses 'Housewives'

Director Simcha Jacobovici at the entrance to the purported "Lost Tomb of Jesus," which unearthed 8 million eyeballs for the Discovery Channel. (Discovery Channel)

Actual family members, sitting around watching TV together, took over the airwaves last week. Three editions of Fox's "American Idol" and three editions of new game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" controlled the top six slots in the ratings heap, leaving closest competitor "Desperate Housewives," on ABC, limping behind by a whopping 5 million viewers.

Here's a look at the week's Ozzies and Ozzys:

WINNERS

"Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Nearly 27 million viewers stuck around after the guys sang on "American Idol" Tuesday to check out the unveiling of the Fox game show. That's the network's biggest audience ever for a series premiere and the biggest opening haul for a new show on any network in more than eight years. (That would be since lame sitcom "Jesse" logged 27 million viewers in its premiere in the late '90s, when NBC could throw pretty much any old thing on its Thursday lineup and cop a great number. Good times.) More than 23 million came back to "5th Grader" after "Idol" the next two nights.

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus." More than 4 million viewers checked out Discovery Channel's Sunday "documentary" on the find of a tomb in which Jesus's remains were purportedly buried. And while that's a smaller crowd than watched such cable shows as, say, "WWE," "Monk," "Psych" and "Hannah Montana" last week, it's still Discovery's biggest crowd since bagging 7 million viewers on Sept. 11, 2005, with the debut of "The Flight That Fought Back," in which the cable network "re-created" the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93. "Jesus" also fell short of the 5 million who watched the debut of Discovery's "Supervolcano," in which thousands of people visiting Yellowstone National Park had to run for their lives when the volcano under their feet blew its lid. "This is a true story: It just hasn't happened yet," Discovery said of that "docudrama."

Following "Jesus," Ted Koppel moderated a chat between Smugly the Investigative Journalist-Filmmaker and skeptical archaeologists and theologians. It drew 2.6 million viewers.

"America's Next Top Model." Tyra's back and 5.4 million watched -- the reality show's best launch yet.

LOSERS

"The Winner." Fox's new sitcom, about a 30-year-old virgin whose best friend is the child of the woman he had a crush on in school (ick), finished third in its debut Sunday at 8:30 p.m. A second episode, at 9:30, ranked fourth in that slot. Fox noted the show did well with men 18 to 34, which we think is sad.

" The Black Donnellys." About 8 million people watched the Monday debut of NBC's replacement for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." That's not a great retention of its "Heroes" lead-in of 14.4 million viewers. Nor does it stand up to the "Studio 60" premiere audience of 13.4 million in September. And in conclusion, "Black Donnellys" bagged more than 9 million viewers in its first half-hour, but fewer than 7 million stuck around to watch the second half-hour.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: Fox's Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday "American Idol" and Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"; ABC's "Desperate Housewives"; CBS's "CSI: Miami"; NBC's Monday "Deal or No Deal"; and CBS's "Two and a Half Men."