CBS RETURNS TO TOP ON THURSDAY

CBS won the crucial Thursday-night ratings race on the first week of the new season with a big bang. Moving its high-rated The Big Bang Theory from Monday night, CBS garnered even higher ratings for it, 13.95 million viewers for the season opener. That, in turn, led into the series premier of $#*! My Dad Says, starring William Shatner with 12.48 million viewers. It only got better for the network. At 9:00 p.m., the season premiere of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation captured 14.57 million viewers, while at 10:00, The Mentalist capped things off with 15.32 million viewers. NBC, however, continued to struggle, although the series premiere of Outsourced drew a respectable 7.44 million viewers. Those viewers did not hang around for The Apprentice, whose total audience fell to a series low of 3.85 million.