TV Ratings Report: Prodigal Son, All Rise, and Bluff City Law Premiere Low

The fall season is in session, and that can only mean one thing:

The regular ratings posts are back!

While ratings are not the measure of success they once were, they still factor heavily into decisions to renew or cancel series.

Monday night found some big series premieres, but none of the new shows emerged as instant successes.

In some cases, it was quite the opposite.

Prodigal Son lost considerable steam from lead-in 9-1-1. Prodigal Son Season 1 Episode 1 garnered a 1.0 rating and 4.2 million total viewers.

This is a big drop-off from the 7 million viewers and 1.5 rating that 9-1-1 Season 3 Episode 1 brought in. Prodigal Son did launch online ahead of its premiere, so there may be less erosion than usual in the coming weeks.

But the two shows are not the best fit, and FOX may soon regret splitting up 9-1-1 and The Resident if the latter drops much in its new Tuesday slot.

Over on NBC, The Voice returned with a decent 8.8 million total viewers and 1.7 rating, but Bluff City Law came in well below the debut of Manifest in the slot last season (10.4 million/2.2 rating).

The new legal drama launched with 4.7 million viewers and a 0.8 rating.

The show will need to be magnet on the DVR and online viewing if it has any hope of success.

CBS had two series premieres on the night, and both had middling results.

Bob Hearts Abishola (5.9 million viewers/0.8 rating) was perfectly compatible with The Neighborhood (5.7 million/0.9 rating), while All Rise (6 million viewers/0.7 rating) kept people on CBS in the 9/8c slot.

As expected, All Rise is not much of a force in the 18-49 demo, but this is still a respectable opening for CBS.

However, All Rise was down significantly from Magnum PI's debut last year (8.1 million/1.2 rating).

As for Bull (6.3 million/0.7 rating), this was about the best that can be expected. The series has not exactly been in the media for good reasons this year.

The show performs well when DVR viewing is factored in, so it will probably be on the air for years to come.

The Good Doctor (6.6 million/1.0 rating) returned to ABC with ratings on par with its spring run. It's not as strong as it once was, but it remains a competitor in its time period in the younger demos.