'Grey's Anatomy' secures victory for ABC

CBS' 'The Mentalist,' meanwhile, leads in viewers

By JON WEISMAN

Freed from the shadow of baseball's just-concluded World Series, scripted TV made a primetime comeback Thursday, with "Grey's Anatomy" once again powering ABC to a victory among those 18-49. CBS and "The Mentalist" led the night in overall audience.

According to preliminary nationals by Nielsen, "Grey's" (5.0 rating/13 share in 18-49, 13.6 million viewers overall) topped the 9 p.m. hour in the demo, but was bookended by less impressive performances from Alphabet colleagues "FlashForward" (2.6/7, 8.4 million) and "Private Practice" (3.5/10, 9.1 million).

Kicking off the night for CBS was usual 8 p.m. champ "Survivor" (3.7/10, 12.7 million), followed by older-audience faves "CSI" (3.4/9, 15.1 million) and "The Mentalist" (3.4/10, 15.4 million).

Fox, which likely would have had a Game 7 audience of 25 million or more had Philadelphia extended the World Series past Wednesday, settled for workmanlike performances from "Bones" (2.5/7, 8.5 million) at 8 p.m. and "Fringe" (1.7/4, 5.0 million) at 9 p.m. The CW offered "The Vampire Diaries" (2.0/5, 4.2 million), which won its hour among women 18-34, and "Supernatural" (1.2/3, 2.7 million).

NBC's 9 p.m. entry, "The Office" (3.9/10, 7.9 million), was the night's best performer across major male demos Thursday, though "30 Rock" (2.9/7, 5.9 million) shed more than a quarter of that lead-in. At 8 p.m. "Community" (2.3/6, 5.6 million) continues to inch higher and was No. 1 in its timeslot among adults 18-34. "Parks and Recreation" (2.2/6, 4.9 million) reached a season-high in 18-49.

"The Jay Leno Show" (1.6/5, 4.7 million) showed a slight uptick compared to the previous Thursday.

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: ABC 3.7/10, CBS 3.5/9, NBC 2.4/7, Univision 2.4/7, Fox 2.1/6, CW 1.6/4.

In total viewers: CBS 14.4 million, ABC 10.4 million, Fox 6.7 million, NBC 5.7 million, Univision 5.6 million, CW 3.5 million.