Ratings: ‘Community’ season 5 starts weak; ‘The Assets’ premiere bombs

Despite all of the hype surrounding the return of Dan Harmon, not to mention airing two of the best episodes the show has seen in over a year, “Community” still could not solve one of its biggest problems on Thursday night: Its ratings.

Overall, the two-part premiere scored a 1.3 and a 1.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and the good news there is that this was enough for it to be the top-rated comedy of the night for NBC. Granted, that’s not saying a lot given that “Sean Saves the World” and “The Michael J. Fox Show” are stalling with respective 0.8 ratings. “Parenthood” also notched a 1.3, which should serve as some more evidence that it actually could have been a decently-viewed show had the network even bothered to give it anything other than terrible lead-ins.

Surprisingly, though, none of this represented the worst ratings news on the night for the major networks. That honor instead goes to “The Assets,” a show that is officially dead on arrival. Getting a 0.7 rating for your premiere is dreadful, even in a time in January where shows do not tend to perform that well. Season 2 of “The Taste” before it, meanwhile, drew a 1.2 rating that is probably around where repeats of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” would fall. If ABC is willing to keep this show around with these numbers, then we’re really going to start demanding that they bring back “Whodunnit?”.

In case you were wondering, “The Big Bang Theory” of course won the night with a monster 5.3 rating … and the next closest thing back was “The Millers” with a 2.9. We’re sure that CBS in some ways wishes that they had a show that retained more of the original’s audience back there in that spot, but Will Arnett and company are not going anywhere in the near future. It’ll be around for at least another season.