Ratings: ‘MacGyver’ off to great start; ‘The Exorcist’ okay; ‘Hawaii Five-0’ rises

When CBS opted to bump “The Amazing Race” for their remake of “MacGyver,” there was certainly a sentiment among many reality show fans that this could not work. Being a self-admitted Race fanatic, even we were a little skeptical about the new show’s chances.

Based on Friday night’s primetime ratings, we all could be proven wrong — provided that most of the viewership for this show ends up staying put.

The good news – “MacGyver” drew in total a 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is super-impressive for Friday night and it was enough for the show to win the night easily. Our sentiment is that so long as the show maintains a rating of around 1.1-1.2, that’s good enough for it to have a shelf life on Friday nights. We do expect its rating to drop some, especially given that the premiere episode was one that drew mixed reaction from some fans.

The other good news is that this premiere lifted the other two Friday shows on CBS — both “Hawaii Five-0” (1.3) and “Blue Bloods” (1.3) were up at least slightly from their most-recent premieres.

The “meh” news – “The Exorcist” started with a 1.0 rating over on Fox, which seems bad but not so much when you consider that it fared better than “Rosewood” (0.7) and came close to “Pitch” (1.1) the night before. If it keeps most of that rating over the season, it could be a solid entry in the lineup.

The bad news – Is the “Shark Tank” crazy officially over? With just a 1.1 for the premiere episode, we’re starting to think so. “Last Man Standing” (1.1) and “Dr. Ken” (0.9) also showed some minor declines from their previous premieres (though the one for the Tim Allen series was negligible at best).