The Muppets beat Scream Queens in premiere ratings 

Kermit and Miss Piggy throttled a sorority house of mean girls in Tuesday night’s ratings. 

delivered strong premiere numbers, while horror comedy 

 had 8.9 million viewers and a 2.8 rating among adults 18–49 at 8 p.m., and the two-hour 

 opener had only 4 million viewers and a 1.7 rating (rising from a 1.6 in the preliminary report). 

 (9.8 million, 1.8), had a somewhat mixed start at 10 p.m. — high in viewers and built slightly from its lead-in, though still a lower demo rating than networks hope to see for a premiere. 

 is the biggest head-turn of the night. Producer Ryan Murphy’s latest was tracking strong in the industry’s pre-premiere polling (which correctly predicted successful openings for 

). Yesterday Fox released that the show was generating extremely strong interest on social media in the days ahead of its premiere, racking up more than 300,000 social media actions. Fox supported the show with a visually grabby ad campaign featuring stars Emma Roberts, Lea Michele, Ariana Grande and Jamie Lee Curtis. And yet … a 1.7.

 is the show’s ratings largely held steady over the course of its two hours, so almost all the viewers who started the show completed it — that kind of retention, especially over an unusually long premiere, is taken as a good sign (and that opener covered a lot of storytelling ground). So 

 could still build, or at least maintain, its rating. Fox points out the show skews young and female and they expect a big boost from future DVR playback. 

 did well, as you would expect. Not huge. But that rating is about double the debut of 

 last year (we will never forget!). The return of 

 (6 million, 1.9) at 8:30 sank a bit from its lead-in. 

 (12.5 million, 1.7), both down a bit from last year, with the flagship having its softest premiere ever. That 

 (12.1 million, 3.4) premiere week continued, also down somewhat. But that leads us to another bit of news (and this one is good): 

Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris

 in the ratings for its second week — by 22 percent. Surprise! Granted, 

, so the neo-variety show had more viewers going into 10 p.m., but nobody forces somebody to watch a series and winning an hour is winning an hour no matter what kind of help you get. 

Here are EW’s reviews for Scream Queens (B+), The Muppets (B-) and our take on Limitless (C). 

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