Despite all the built up excitement for last night’s premieres, the numbers were down across the board. In the end, a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy (down 17% from this time last year) helped ABC win the viewers and the demos.

8pm

• Approximately 12.9 million saw the premiere of Survivor: Gabon (4.5/11 in18-49) in HD.
• Ugly Betty (9.8 million, 3.3/9) was down 15% from last fall.
• My Name is Earl (6.4 million, 2.7/8) dove 29%.
• The first hour of Kitchen Nightmares 1.9/5) cooked up 4.2 million.
• Smallville (4.1 million, 1.7/5) slipped a few notches.

9pm

• Grey’s Anatomy (18.3 million, 7.4/18 in 18-49) had the best demos for any scripted show since February.
• The Office (9.2 million, 4.9/11) only lost 4% from last year.
• Kitchen Nightmares (4.5 million, 2.1/5) improved from its first hour.
• Supernatural (3.2 million, 1.3/3) gave up 800,000.

10pm

• CSI* (2.5/6 in 18-49) refreshed 9.4 million.
• ER (7.9 million, 3.3/7) had its lowest premiere numbers to date.

*denotes repeat

(You can review last Thursday’s ratings here.)