• by Wayne Friedman , September 23, 2009

CBS stormed into the second day of the new TV season with several "NCIS" shows doing major damage.

For the original show's season premiere, "NCIS" posted a night-leading Nielsen preliminary 4.6 rating/13 share between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. among 18-49 viewers. This season debut was well over last year's 3.6/10.

Right on its heels at 9 p.m., its spinoff -- "NCIS: Los Angeles," in its series debut -- grabbed an equally impressive 4.4/11. Add in a good debut of "The Good Wife" at 10 p.m. -- with a 3.1/9, which won the time period -- and this put CBS in first place for the night, averaging a 4.0/11.

CBS was also the only network to score better results for the night versus a year ago.

Fox eked out a narrow second place with a special two-hour "Hell's Kitchen," which had good results, considering all the new scripted TV fall competition, with a 3.3/9.

ABC didn't have as much luck. Its sturdy "Dancing with the Stars" only took in a 3.5/9 -- down from Monday's 4.1/10, and down from last fall's same night, at 4.7/12. Things didn't get much better for the network's new 10 p.m. show, the new Jerry Bruckheimer drama "The Forgotten," that earned a middling 2.5/7.

The only bright spot here was that it went better than either the fall debut of "Eli Stone" or spring debut of "Cupid" in the same time period. ABC was a tick behind Fox for the night overall at a 3.2/9.

NBC's "The Biggest Loser" was down from its premiere a week ago to a 3.1/8, but up slightly -- at 3% -- from same night of a year ago among the 18-49 crowd.

Somewhat brighter news came from day-to-day improvement of "The Jay Leno Show" at 10 p.m., which witnessed a 2.4/7, up from the 1.8 rating on Monday night. This may have been due to somewhat less competition from two new unproven shows running against it: "The Good Wife" and "The Forgotten."

Good and bad news for The CW: "90210" maintained about the same 18-34 ratings as a week ago, with a 1.5 number; but "Melrose Place" continued to slide, down 20% among its key women 18-34 demo.

Overall for the night, CW landed with a 0.9/3 among 18-49 viewers and a 1.3/4 among all 18-34 viewers -- good for sixth place. Univision went a bit better on Tuesday night: a 1.6/4 for 18-49 viewers and 1.7/5 for 18-34.