Bluff City Law, All American ratings dip; All Rise stays steady

We’re now entering the fourth official week of the fall TV season, and there are some trends that are starting to become apparent. Some new shows are finding more of a stable audience, whereas others are still struggling to stop the bleeding.

Take, for example, Bluff City Law over at NBC. Despite having a solid lead-in courtesy of The Voice, Monday’s new episode generated just a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This is the fourth straight week of decline for the Jimmy Smits legal drama, and we know that NBC had some higher expectations for a show in this spot. For some contrast, Manifest last season in this timeslot never generated lower than a 0.9 rating and averaged a 1.3 rating — higher than any episode of Bluff City Law has scored all season long. It’s making that decision to hold off on Manifest until midseason all the more dubious.

Meanwhile, the news for some of CBS’ shows is a little bit better. Take, for example, All Rise at least holding steady at a 0.6. It’s not a great number by any means, but it’s also performing better than Bluff City Law in live total viewers as well as keeping most of its lead-in. Bob ♥ Abishola, that aforementioned lead-in, is hovering around a 0.7 rating. Prodigal Son over on Fox drew a 0.8 rating, and given the state of many new network series, that looks almost like a big-time hit these days. (It is the first scripted fall series to get that coveted full-season order.)

As for returning dramas, it’s worth noting that one week after posting some impressive numbers for the premiere, All American fell back to a 0.2 rating in the demo. That’s a sign that while Netflix helped to bump the numbers slightly, it was ultimately a temporary gain. We’re now back in this sort of territory, which is not territory that a lot of shows ultimately want to find themselves in … but it may still be fine. There are a ton of people out there who clearly want to stream it and odds are, The CW will consider that when they are making renewal deliberations.

The big winners of the night were, overall, The Voice and also 9-1-1 with 1.4 ratings in the demo. The latter fell slightly following the end of its big three-part tsunami storyline. Meanwhile, Dancing with the Stars improved heavily to a 1.1 rating, a sign that Disney Week is one of the biggest ratings draws that the show has. (Photo: The CW)