Premiere week heated up on Thursday night with The Big Bang Theory delivering major ratings with its double-header return to CTV.

The show’s 8 p.m. season-seven opener on CTV brought in 4.31 million viewers (2+) AMA, according to overnight data from BBM Canada provided by Bell Media. A second new episode drew a larger audience, with 4.61 million tuning in, the highest-ever overnight numbers for the series in Canada.

Robin Williams’ new ad agency comedy The Crazy Ones premiered at 9 p.m. on City to 863,000 viewers, up against the new series premiere of Grey’s Anatomy on CTV, which brought in 2.01 million viewers nationally.

At the upfronts this spring, Lina Alles, managing partner at Mindshare, predicted in strategy magazine’s annual “Fall TV battlegrounds” story that the new comedy will have a hard time against Grey’s if it doesn’t move beyond focusing on Williams.

“From what I’ve seen of The Crazy Ones, and I have only seen the clips, it looks like it’s Robin Williams playing Robin Williams, which will not sustain long-term appeal,” she said. “If viewers want to see Robin Williams doing comedy they can watch one of his many stand-up DVDs. I think for this show to engage an audience (especially up against Grey’s Anatomy), it  needs to be more than just the Robin Williams Show.”

From Media in Canada