NBC's One-Two Ratings Punch: 'Bionic,' 'Life'

Kevin Reilly had a really good night Wednesday, with his new NBC dramas "Bionic Woman" and "Life" launching stronger than many industry navel-gazers had expected and catapulting NBC's Premiere Week Wednesday a whopping 50 percent over the first Wednesday of last season.

Guess NBC's maybe feeling a little silly now about having jettisoned Reilly as its head of prime-time entertainment programming in late May, just 15 days after he'd unveiled to advertisers this season's slate of shows, including "Bionic Woman" and "Life."

"Bionic Woman" was NBC's top-rated Wednesday series premiere since "The West Wing" in 1999 and is the top-rated new series so far this TV season among the 18-to-49-year-olds all the major broadcast networks target because advertisers pay a premium to reach them.

Overall, "Bionic" clocked nearly 14 million viewers, compared with the 8 million or so NBC logged on Premiere Week Wednesday last fall. This is no small feat, given that the series launched at the exact same time ABC was launching its "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff, "Private Practice," which navel-gazers had predicted would be this season's 800-pound ratings gorilla -- though some became less certain after watching last May's two-hour "backdoor" pilot episode.

Overall, "Private Practice" drew around 14.2 million viewers; last spring, its backdoor pilot on a Thursday "Grey's Anatomy" logged about 21 million.

Both new shows had been highly hyped; "Private Practice" enjoyed a much stronger lead-in with a "Dancing With the Stars" results show (it drew 16.8 million viewers) than did "Bionic" with a "Deal or No Deal" (9 million) crowd-warmer. The "PP" audience was mostly women; "Bionic" attracted more men.

"Life," starring Damian Lewis as an LAPD detective just out of the slammer, where he spent a dozen years for a crime he did not commit, also won its time slot among 18-to-49-year-old viewers. It beat ABC's new "Dirty Sexy Money" and the season debut of CBS's "CSI: Miami" and is the third-highest-rated new series so far this season, behind "Bionic Woman" and "Private Practice." The number of navel-gazers who predicted that is zero.

Overall, "Life" clung to about 10 million viewers; in the same time slot one year ago, "Kidnapped" kicked off with fewer than 8 million.

And Kevin Reilly, the guy who oversaw development of "Bionic Woman" and "Life"? He's now running the entertainment division at the No. 1-rated network, Fox.