Meanwhile, NBC (households: 5.7/9, #3; adults 18-49: 4.3, #3) offered up the season premiere of "My Name Is Earl" (households: 5.2/9, #11, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 3.5, #T13, half-hour: N/A), a second "My Name Is Earl" (households: 5.5/9, #8, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 3.9, #11, half-hour: N/A), the opener to "The Office" (households: 5.4/8, #9, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 5.1, #T3, half-hour: N/A), a second "The Office" (households: 5.3/8, #10, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 5.1, #T3, half-hour: N/A) and the return of "ER" (households: 6.4/11, #7, half-hour: 3.08%; adults 18-49: 4.2, #6, half-hour: -2.44%).

Said "Office" numbers marked its most-watched episodes in the key demographic compared with all of last season, beating out the 5.0 rating set by its 1/11/07 and 2/1/07 installments. The episodes also marked the largest NBC audience in the 9:00/8:00c hour compared with all of last season. "Earl" then was on par with its 2006 opener (households: 5.8/10; adults 18-49: 3.7 on 9/21/06) while "ER" (households: 10.0/17; adults 18-49: 6.8 on 9/21/06) was down a troubling 38.24%.