To find the last time "Fringe" even came close to this week's audience, one would have to look all the way back to the end of last season. And even then, it's still not close.

"Fringe" finished the week with a 5.2 rating/8 share, according to Fast National ratings from The Nielsen Co. That was 27 percent better than the previous week and nearly 11 percent better from its previous Thursday season high, a 4.7/8 picked up on premiere week Sept. 17. It also finished 33 percent above its season average on Thursdays so far.

The Fox show, which has struggled since moving to Thursdays, had some help in the fact that much of its competition -- including "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC -- were in reruns. But it does lead some credence to the continuing argument that Fox has "Fringe" scheduled on the wrong night.

Sadly, "Fringe" is still 21 percent lower than its season finale May 12. The show reached a 5.2 household rating once during its first season, and sadly that audience on Nov. 25, 2008, was a season low.

"Heroes" continues to falter for NBC since its move to the 9 p.m. timeslot. It lost more than 29 percent of its lead-in audience from "Chuck" on Monday, and is now struggling to reach the 3.0 household rating, putting it ever so close to The CW audience range. It finished in third for the week ahead of "Vampire Diaries" on The CW, but beat it by only by 26 percent compared to the 126 percent drubbing "Fringe" gave the show.

"Dollhouse" finished its series run pretty much were it was all season, a 1.4/2, and finished behind the return of "Smallville," which had not aired a new episode since Nov. 20, but came back with pretty much the same audience it left with. It's still severely lagging from last season's numbers when it aired on Thursdays as a lead-in to "Supernatural."

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

Top Genre Shows, Week of Jan. 24 -- [Audience Loyalty Index rating]
1. (1) Fringe (Fox) -- 5.2/8 -- [75.0]
2. (2) Chuck (NBC) -- 4.1/6 -- [95.3]
3. (3) Heroes (NBC) -- 2.9/4 -- [93.1]
4. (4) Vampire Diaries (CW) -- 2.3/4 -- [80.6]
5. (5) Supernatural (CW) -- 1.8/3 -- [81.0]
6. (-) Smallville (CW) -- 1.6/3 -- [94.1]
7. (-) Dollhouse (Fox) -- 1.4/2 -- [88.2]

Data collected from The Nielsen Co., as distributed by Zap2it. BlipNetwork tracks non-news, non-event programming, and figures for this story reflect airing of new episodes only. For more information on the Audience Loyalty Index, click here.