Was There Room Enough for Glee in Cougar Town?

Yup. High-school-set dramedy and ”older“-ladies-loving comedy both do their thing in first ratings matchup

By Joal Ryan Sep 24, 2009 6:07 PMTags
Courteney Cox, Cougartown, Lea Michele, GleeABC/JAMES WHITE; Joe Viles/FOX

Glee was thrown to the wolves—and cougars—last night.

In its third week, the perpetually peppy high school dramedy faced its first killer test, going up against the premieres of CBS' Criminal Minds, NBC's Law & Order: SVU and ABC's new comedy block, including Courteney Cox's Cougar Town.

It passed.

Glee held steady with 6.6 million viewers, per preliminary Nielsen estimates, dominating among teens and Gossip Girls where Cougar Town (11.6 million) understandably worked the cougar vote.

Criminal Minds (15.4 million) won the night, while the Jay Leno-shuffled SVU (8.4 million) looked a little smaller at 9 p.m.