How I Met Your Mother

Johnny Galecki, "The Big Bang Theory" *CBS) 
 Brad Garrett, "'Til Death" (Fox) 
 Adrian Grenier, "Entourage" (HBO) 
 Jason Lee, "My Name Is Earl" (NBC) 
 Bret McKenzie, "Flight of the Conchords" (HBO) 
 Jim Parsons, "Big Bang Theory" (CBS) 
 Josh Radnor, "How I Met Your Mother" (CBS)

Monday 8 p.m. "The Big Bang Theory" 8:30 p.m. "How I Met Your Mother" 9 p.m. "Two and a Half Men" 9:30 p.m. "Worst Week" * 10 p.m. "CSI: Miami" Wednesday 8 p.m. "The New Adventures of Old Christine" ** 8:30 p.m. "Project Gary" * 9 p.m. Criminal Minds" 10 p.m. "CSI: New York"

Meanwhile: Fox and The CW are pretty much DOA. “Prison Break” has shed more than 20% of its audience from last season, and “K-Ville” is down to 5.78m viewers. And The CW can’t manage more than 2.59m viewers in its Monday lineup, even with one-time critical fave rave “Everybody Hates Chris.”

CBS used to own Monday nights. No longer. If “How I Met Your Mother” can only manage 8.3 million to open the night, we’ll never get around to meeting the mother. Its lame performance makes “The Big Bang Theory’s” improvement to 9.6m at 8:30 all the more impressive.