The one-two punch of "Deal or No Deal" and "Heroes" sent NBC to the front of the ratings pack Monday. But "The Black Donnellys" didn't help the Peacock Network.

For last week, Fox zoomed to an easy victory, powered by three editions apiece of "American Idol" and "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"

Back to Monday. "Deal or No Deal" was the night's biggest show with 18.3 million viewers. It dominated the 8 p.m. hour. Fox's "Prison Break," with a guest appearance by Patricia Wettig as a U.S. president who stepped down, entertained 9.7 million. CBS comedies were third: a repeat of "How I Met Your Mother" amused 8.8 million. The same size of audience watched the season finale of "The Class." Will that be the end for that show? We'll know later.

At 9 p.m., "Heroes" kept the NBC hot streak going with 14.9 million viewers. A repeat of CBS' "Two and a Half Men" pulled in 14.6 million. The audience fell to 12.6 million for a new episode of CBS' "Rules of Engagement." Jack Bauer had 13 million stirred up with his incredible actions inside the Russian embassy on Fox's "24."

At 10 p.m., a repeat of CBS' "CSI: Miami" was the easy victor with 14.3 million. NBC could hold just 7 million with "The Black Donnellys." ABC fared worse with "What About Brian" drawing only 4.8 million.

For the night, NBC averaged 13.4 million. The rest of the field: CBS with 12.2 million, Fox with 11.4 million, ABC with 7.5 million and The CW with 1.9 million. In the 18-to-49 age group so dear to advertisers, NBC won, followed by Fox, CBS, ABC and The CW.

Fox was the big winner last week with an average 15.3 million viewers. The rest: CBS with 11.8 million, NBC with 8.2 million, ABC with 8.1 million and The CW with 3.4 million.

“Heroes” provided a textbook example of a cliffhanger tonight (we won’t see another new episode until April 23). Suffice it to say, everyone’s in deep, deep trouble, or, at least, not exactly where they’d like to be despite their best intentions.

Only two questions this week: Wouldn’t Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) have found time, somewhere along the line, to have cleaned Simone’s blood off his face? And wouldn’t H.R.G. (Jack Coleman), having seen his new partner’s shape-shifting powers, been a little more circumspect when re-uniting with his wife? (That plot twist was obvious from a mile away.)

HOLLYWOOD – Thursday nights, not Monday nights, were supposed to showcase the battle of the network stars this season.

Although the fireworks between titans “Grey’s Anatomy” of ABC and “CSI” of CBS have been colorful, another unexpected contest broke out in January when Fox’s “24” returned to Mondays at 9 p.m. to face off against CBS’ “Two and a Half Men” and NBC’s “Heroes.” Combined, the three shows can draw as many as 45 million viewers, and all three rank among the top 20 shows in the highly desirable demographic of 18- to 49-year-olds.

“That’s a lot of viewers in the age of fractionalized audiences,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president at New York ad firm Horizon Media. “It shows that even in a very, very competitive landscape, you can still get huge numbers.”

Especially in an era when networks are struggling as never before to land a hit show, it’s rare for three bona fide front-runners to be pitted against one another in the same time slot. The three have been a boon for Mondays, transforming a traditionally solid television viewing night into one of the most competitive prime-time matchups in recent memory.

By Gilbert Cruz
Let's get something straight. I'm not paid by NBC. That is to say, I'm not the official Heroes booster. My job is not to come here every week and write about how great the show is, even if an episode genuinely stinks (which several genuinely have). My job is to offer up a readable, reasonable, well-balanced critique of the previous night's episode.

That being said, what a cliff-hanger! I mean, wow. Last week's was clearly the best episode that Heroes has yet aired, but with us not having another one until April 23, I'm totally on the edge of my seat until then. I've grown to love this show more and more each week (except for that fallow period — you know the one). To paraphrase 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan, I love Heroes so much, I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Missy Peregrym’s new “Heroes” character, Candice Wilmer, has only been seen briefly in the last episode, but she’s due to make a bigger appearance in tonight’s “Like Any Parasite” episode. Meanwhile, you can catch Missy over at G4’s “Attack of the Show” (7 pm ET/PT), where she’ll be discussing her role in the “Heroes” universe. What is Candice’s power? Is she part of The Company? And what was behind that look she gave HRG when we first saw her last episode? Your chance to find out all that and more when Missy appears on G4’s “Attack of the Show” tonight.

It's all connected?

Fans say there's evidence that ties 'Lost' and 'Heroes' together, but creators don't buy it
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | March 4, 2007

Across the Internet, the screen-grabbing obsessives -- the ones who deal in frame-by-frame analysis of ABC's "Lost" -- were getting in a lather about the NBC hit "Heroes." It had to do with a brief scene a few weeks ago, when Nathan Petrelli, the caddish politician who can shoot into the air like a bottle rocket, grumbled about what might happen if word got out about his powers.

Officials could "round us all up, stick us in a lab on some island in the middle of the ocean," Nathan said. And within nanoseconds, the clarion call clanged out in cyberspace: "Heroes" mentions island! It must be a reference to "Lost"!

Yes, "Lost" and "Heroes" air on different networks, tell different stories, and exist -- as "Lost" producers point out -- in totally different time frames. (The "Lost" castaways live, after all, in the fall of 2004.) But to their most devoted fans, the shows have come to represent a sort of yin and yang of serial TV, in constant battle for the title of the Mystery Show That Does It Better.