Even though Smallville has been stuck in the death slot of Friday nights, (thanks, CW), the ratings for the Tom Welling-starring fantasy series are improving.

Now admittedly Smallville is not capturing 8 million viewers like NBC’s Law & Order or 7.9 million viewers like Ghost Whisperer on Friday nights, but it is picking up.

Smallville drew in 2.76 million viewers in overnight numbers from last night.  But more importantly, the show won the demographic of adults between 18-34 & men 18-34.

It also hit a new season high and their best performance in these categories in over a year, since September of 2008.

We here at Screen Rant are here to cater to you, the reader. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be bringing over any freshly baked ice cream cone cupcakes (remember those? Awesome.), but that does mean that we like to hear from you about what you like, what you don’t, what you watch and what you’d like to see more coverage about.

Over the past few weeks of the fall season premiere, we have played around with reviews and discussions on a variety of television shows – and while some received the expected responses (Stargate, Flashforward, Smallville), others did not (CSI, CSI:NY, Criminal Minds, MythBusters). And then there were some shows that nobody expected to receive the amount of response it did (Ghost Whisperer).

Last season on Ghost Whisperer we said goodbye to Rick Payne (Jay Mohr) and hello to Eli James (Jamie Kennedy). Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) finds out she’s pregnant while Jim (David Conrad) is shot and turns into Sam/Jim. The Book of Changes shows up and we learn about “The Watchers.” As the season closes, we find out Melinda is having a boy whose abilities will be greater than her own.

The overnight ratings numbers are in for the premieres of Dollhouse and Smallville and they’re not as rosy-looking as we’d like.  Then again, it is Friday night and our favorite returning shows are up against some heavy hitters.

CBS dominated Friday night with their shoe-in season premiers of Ghost Whisperer and Medium.  Both shows raked in over 8 1/2 million viewers.

Even the encore presentation of FlashForward dusted our favored shows by bringing in an additional 4.6 million viewers.

Ghost Whisperer, Law & Order, Smallville, Dollhouse, Medium & Numb3rs are all returning tonight… and then we have the premiere of a FOX comedy with a retired football player?

Friday hasn’t been this popular for television since ABC was in its hay-day with TGIF and Boy Meets World (Feeny!). With seven hours of new and returning programming stuffed into a three hour block, you’re either going to have to make some tough decisions on what to watch, or be a DVR master.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s lineup.

Today’s Weekly TV Wrap Up has some news about the Syfy channel picking up a show called Alphas, news on Chuck air dates, plus renewal news on In Plain Sight and other USA shows.

I’m also chatting about some Ghost Whisperer bits, Futurama voice casting news and some news about Medium on CBS.  I’ve also found some casting news on Game Of Thrones.

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Syfy Picks Up Alphas

Syfy has picked up a 90-minute action-adventure pilot called Alphas.

Alphas is about a team of ordinary citizens who possess hyper-developed neurological abilities.  Each person has a slightly special feature about them, but as a team, they combine to have extra-special skills.  It’s to be written by Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand), Michael Karnow and BermanBraun Television.

For whatever reason, NBC and ABC passed on Alphas while Syfy, having the opportunity, jumped on this superhero genre show.

Source:  Hollywood Reporter

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Today in Screen Rant’s weekly TV Wrap Up, we have some great casting news for 24, we’ll be talking about David Carradine’s appearance in Fox’s new show Mental and we also have some Heroes casting news, the possibility that My Name Is Earl may be getting new legs, some news on Ghost Whisperer, The Sarah Connor Chronicles coming to DVD and a bit about Futurama’s, err, future.

We’ll wrap it up with ratings from last week.  This week in the ratings section, I thought I’d try something new and toss in some cable viewer numbers.

This week, we chat about Caprica, Supernatural, the NCIS spin-off, a new vampire pilot from The CW, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy and some bits about ABC renewing some shows. Also, since we reported that Dave Letterman was announcing the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model last week, it’s only right that we finish what we started with a little something at the bottom of this post. Shall we get on with it? I knew you’d say that.

But before I say anything else, I would be remiss to not remind you that Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are coming to your TV this Friday night!

The new 2008 Fall TV season is almost upon us, with the first new show of the season premiering on September 1st. Screen Rant has put together an extensive list of new and returning programs along with their premiere dates, along with descriptions and recommendations.

So what’s up this fall? What are we anticipating, what are we, well… not anticipating?

With the new season of Ghost Whisperer, the show is going to explore the history of where Melinda lives, the town of Grandview and start to explain her character’s purpose there.

We’ll learn more about Grandview and why the ghosts seem to hunt down our heroine in every episode (and here I thought she had a ghost welcome mat out on her doorstep!).

These add to the developing powers of the dark side in season 3, but are also a frustrating perspective for this writer, since she can only talk ghosts out of doing things and seems relatively powerless to stop anyone from doing evil. That is, unless she gets some new edge to help stop the dark side.