Ratings: ‘The Great Indoors,’ ‘Pure Genius’ star okay; ‘Chicago Med,’ ‘The Blacklist’ rise

While it may be far too early to coin “Pure Genius” over on CBS a hit, we can at least say that it’s off to at least a decent start on Thursday night … especially when you consider the competition and comparables.

Sure, by most accounts a 1.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic isn’t great, but you gotta remember that this is better than “Elementary” did in this timeslot on the network last year; also, it was strong enough for the show to tie “The Blacklist” and “How to Get Away with Murder” for #1 for the hour. If it keeps that performance most of the season, we do think it’s got a relatively good shot of being renewed for another season.

Other good news – “The Great Indoors” got off to a solid start in a 2.0 rating on the night, though the question there is about retention given that we’ve seen other shows start off even better following “The Big Bang Theory.” What’s most interesting to us is that despite all of this competition, both “Superstore” (1.3) and “The Good Place” (1.1) also saw their numbers improve.

Also, great news for “Chicago Med,” which was NBC’s top show of the night with a 1.4 rating. This is why the network moved it to Thursday; they now that they can expand the “Chicago” franchise to three nights and be just fine. As for if we could see it on four, we’ll have to wait and find out when they are putting “Chicago Justice” on the air.

The bad news – “Life in Pieces” premiered to just a 1.5 rating; while not terrible, it is down more than 40% from the start of season 1. Meanwhile, “Legends of Tomorrow” declined versus its previous episode to a 0.6, and “Notorious” dropped to a 0.8 after it was reported that the show is getting a smaller episode order than originally planned. (Photo: NBC.)