Quantrell Colbert/The CWWhat's TV's top vampire series? How did Gossip Girl make out in its premiere? And how did One Tree Hill make out without Chad Michael Murray?
The answers—and more questions—in the latest ratings quiz:
1. The Vampire Diaries or True Blood? Even though Vampire Diaries had a CW-big premiere, the second-season finale of HBO's True Blood was bigger: 5.1 million pay-cable viewers versus 4.9 million free-TV ones. In the end, both shows won. And arguably rode Twilight's coattails.
2. Gossip Girl was back. Were you? If you were a young woman, probably. The third-season opener did even better than The Vampire Diaries among the CW's beloved female types. Overall, the show looked nichier than ever with an estimated audience of 2.5 million, down about 1 million from last fall's premiere.
3. Is One Tree Hill nothing without Murray? Actually, it's still got something. In its seventh-season premiere last night, the new-look CW soap was bigger than Gossip Girl, with an estimated 2.6 million viewers.
4. Who picked up more chicks last night, Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick or Jay Leno's Jay Leno? When we tell you Leno, remember that the gray-haired one does have Kanye West's phone number.
5. What was the highest-ranking fall premiere? NBC's Sunday Night Football, which was the No. 1 show in all of TV, per the latest Nielsen standings, with more than 21 million viewers. Fox's Glee (18th place) cracked the Top 20, the only new scripted show to do so since the other new scripted shows were on the CW. In cable, the third-season opener of Nick's iCarly was the No. 1 fall series premiere, and the No. 4 show overall. FX's Sons of Anarchy also got off to a fast start—and a Top 15 finish.
6. Where did the CW dramas rank? Vampire Diaries cracked the Top 50, admirably. 90210 cracked the Top 100, barely. Melrose Place didn't. Crack the Top 100, that is.
7. How fond was King of the Hill's farewell? The Mike Judge toon went out a Top 30 show, more or less. (The first half-hour ranked 29th; the second, 31st.)
8. Why does Lifetime want you to know Project Runway is in the midst of its most-watched season ever? Two guesses: One, because it is; two, because it got beat in the reality-show cable standings by HGTV's Design Star, History's Time Machine and Bravo's Real Housewives of Atlanta.
9. What's the good news for Michael Jackson—and the bad news for Kanye West? MTV's Jackson-celebrating, West-marred Video Music Awards was watched by nearly 9 million—the show's biggest live audience in five years.