Overnight TV Ratings

Julia Louise-Dreyfuss's new sitcom looks like a hit -- it improved on its debut ratings from last week, which means the people who watched enjoyed it enough to come back and bring their friends. Deal Or No Deal -- Howie Mandel's witless gameshow ("Point at a box!" How exciting.) -- also holds steady. And of course 24 takes no prisoners. (Prison Break does take prisoners and did fine, too.) The losers? ABC's reality show Miracle Workers -- which makes me glad. Frankly, it creeped me out to realize that the poor people dealing with dire medical conditions had to expose their lives (and the lives sometimes of their kids)in exchange for medical treatment they could never afford otherwise. And the biggest loser of all? Donald Trump, whose The Apprentice is losing steam rapidly. The combination of Martha Stewart's duplicate hour and a timeslot change is driving it to an early grave. And much as I love My Name Is Earl, it's not like that's tearing up the ratings in the Thursday slot either.