• Shrektacular. The premiere of Shrek the Halls [1] was huge for ABC on Wednesday, with 21 million viewers tuning in. How the Grinch Stole Christmas wasn't far behind, with 18.7 million viewers of its own. Tuesday's broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas also held its own, nabbing 13.6 million viewers.
• Dancing to the top. Not surprisingly, the season finale of Dancing with the Stars [2] pulled some big numbers for ABC. Monday's competition show got a season-high 24.7 million viewers, and Tuesday's two-hour results show had as many as as 25.7 million people tuning in. Amazingly, those were the weakest finale numbers yet [3] for the show.
• Notes: Underwhelming. Notes from the Underbelly [4] drew 8.3 million viewers for its season premiere on Monday, losing a third of the audience from its lead-in, Samantha Who? [5] That's still better than struggling October Road [6], though, which barely topped 6 million viewers in its proper season premiere.
• No laughs here. Thursday should have been an easy night for NBC's comedies, with most of the CBS and ABC shows (with the exception of Survivor) taking the night off. But it didn't work out that way: My Name is Earl eked out 6.6 million viewers, 30 Rock [7] was a shade under 6 million, and Scrubs [8] closed out the comedy block with 5.9 million viewers. Ouch.
• Not ready for Battle. One cable ratings note: Saturday's premiere of the Battlestar Galactica movie, Razor, wasn't quite what the Sci Fi network was hoping for, nabbing just 1.7 million viewers.

Photo courtesy of ABC [9]