You were wrong, cynics!  Pushing Daisies, the critically lauded new fairy tale-comedy-drama from ABC, debuted last night and easily won its time slot, garnering very good ratings across the board, and dominating in key demographics.  This is great news for anyone who likes good TV.  Personally, I was prepared for the worst when it came to Pushing Daisies' ratings.  But, ABC publicized the best new show of the season well enough to bring in a big audience, which also had to have been helped by the show's universally incredible reviews.  To be fair, its time slot isn't all that competitive and the second episode will be a truer indication of how audiences are responding to Daisies. 

Highest Rated Show of the Night:  Criminal Minds – 14.4 million viewers

8pm Time Slot Winner: Pushing Daisies – 12.8 million viewers

9pm Time Slot Winner: Criminal Minds

10pm Time Slot Winner: CSI: NY – 12.7 million viewers

Pushing Daisies beat out NBC's Deal or No Deal by a good couple million viewers, while third place Kid Nation stumbled again, falling to 7.5 million viewers.  Daisies' competition is fairly weak in this time slot, and there's no reason that audiences won't stick around all year.  I can't tell you how happy it'd make me feel if Daisies became the season's break out hit.  It deserves it.

At 9pm, Criminal Minds surged ahead of both Private Practice and Bionic Woman, gaining almost two million viewers since last week.  The battle that everyone cares about, and the one that does better in the important demos, was Private Practice vs. Bionic Woman.  Private Practice won again, receiving a 12 million person audience, beating NBC's Bionic Woman by a good two million.

Dirty Sexy Money fell short of CSI: NY at 10pm, but did beat out NBC's Life rather easily.
 

-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source: TV Guide
(image Courtesy of ABC)