Can you smell that? It’s the smell of all our favorite shows coming back! The biggest winner of TV premiere week so far seems to be Robin Williams, who emerged victorious from his Thursday matchup with Michael J. Fox. There he was on Thursday night, drawing in 15.6 million viewers to the returning CBS comedy The Crazy Ones, while Fox’s The Michael J. Fox Show only managed 7.2 million. Crazy also beat Fox in the highly prized by advertisers so-called “young adult” demographic. We suspect quite a few people in this demo were away from the TV entirely, streaming episodes of other shows, but that’s beside the point.

Robin Willians, CW, CBS and Showtime Summer TCA
It was a sizeable win for Williams.

To be fair to both shows, however, the rest of the Thursday lineup could have had something to do with the considerable gap in ratings. While The Crazy Ones was preceded by a double bill of the wildly popular (for whatever reason) The Big Bang Theory, which averaged 18.9 million viewers, The Michael J. Fox Show came after the much less popular Parks and Recreation, which drew in just 3.3 million.

Michael J Fox, Tribeca Film Fest
Fox, on the other hand, didn't even do half as well.

Still, this means that CBS made sort of a comeback towards the end of the week, after taking a beating on Monday. Fortunately for Fox, The Crazy Ones airing at 9.00 was an exception for this week only and the show will move away from that time slot to a later and less competitive 9.30 ET/PT. This will free up the earlier slot for the return of another TV star, Sean Hayes, with Sean Saves the World.

Michael J. Fox, NBC Fall Launch Party
At least this lineup was only a one-time deal.