Question of the Week: Is There an Idolette Who's a Neil Diamond in the Rough?

CBS's Thursday. CBS had the most viewers every half-hour of the night, beating ABC's returning Thursday lineup.

ABC's Thursday. ABC, on the other hand, had the highest-rated Thursday among 18-to-49-year-olds -- the McDreamys of Madison Avenue. Back after a months-long hiatus induced by the writers' strike, "Grey's Anatomy" clocked, yes, its smallest overall audience to date for a Thursday original episode (excluding Thanksgiving night) but the highest rating among those 18-to-49-year-olds for a scripted series since "House" back in February. Which, yes, is kinda damning with faint praise, given what's been going on with scripted series since the strike started. At 10 that night, "Lost" retained 74 percent of the overall "Grey's Anatomy" lead-in audience, which -- once you get over the fact "Lost" by now should not be taking up space in a protected time slot and getting spoon-fed the "Grey's Anatomy" audience -- is a very good retention at 10 p.m. Thursday. Particularly compared with retention rates of predecessors in the time slot this season: "Big Shots," 36 percent; "Women's Murder Club,"43 percent; and "October Road," 41 percent.

"Law & Order." Jesse L. Martin's swan song -- and the first original "L&O" episode since March 19 -- scored the show's biggest audience since its Jan. 2 season debut.

LOSERS

Katie Couric. The week after CBS big cheeses appeared in their newsroom to show their support-ish for Couric, her evening newscast logged 5.34 million viewers, breaking the previous week's record low. Couric came in nearly 2.5 million viewers shy of Charles Gibson's No. 2-ranked ABC newscast and not quite 2.7 million shy of Brian Williams's No. 1-ranked NBC evening news.

"ER" matched a series low of 7.5 million viewers last week. NBC has announced it's adding Angela Bassett to the show for its next -- and final -- season. You win the office pool if you bet she's going to play a tough-as-nails attending physician with a secret, troubled past.

"Big Brother." Its smallest season finale ever -- around 7 million viewers. Of course, all its other season finales aired in the dog days of summer -- actually early September -- before the TV season officially started, against far less keen competition. Oh wait, NBC had "Monk" reruns in the time slot last Sunday. Never mind.

"Beauty and the Geek." After hitting a series low of 1.5 million viewers, word leaked out that Ashton Kutcher's reality series would not be renewed next season.

"Gossip Girl." Returned to CW's lineup Monday at 8 with about 5 percent fewer viewers than when it aired Wednesday at 9, despite all the knickers that got knotted over its OM[:-o]G promo campaign, which, turns out, was mostly an OMG campaign and a coupla OM[:-o]G billboards on Times Square and Los Angeles -- B[:-o]D. CW noted it brought the netlet its highest ratings ever in the Monday time slot among 18-to-34-year-olds -- more damning with faint praise -- and the series's third, mind you, best performance ever in adults 18-34 and women 18-34.

"Men in Trees" clocked a record low 5.3 million viewers, after which rumblings of non-renewal could be heard.

"President Bush." First POTUS appearance on Monday's "Deal or No Deal" and the show ties its smallest audience ever among the 18-to-49-year-olds who are the Holy Grail of NBC, and its sixth smallest Monday overall audience. Two nights later, President Bush pops up on the "American Idol" results show, and it virtually matches its smallest Wednesday results night crowd in three years.

"Celebracadabra!" VH1 debuts new D-listers-doing-magic-tricks show and presto! -- all but 539,000 of the nearly 4 million viewers the net had been averaging in the time slot for a month magically disappear.

The week's 10 most watched programs, in order, were: Fox's Tuesday and Wednesday "American Idol"; ABC's Monday and Tuesday "Dancing With the Stars"; CBS's "CSI"; ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives"; and CBS's "CSI: Miami," "NCIS" and "Without a Trace."