FIRST IMPRESSIONS

big winners New shows: (so far) and also-rans

By ROBERT RORKE M ost of the new fall shows have premiered — so now it’s time for the number-crunching.

Which new series are fans actually watching?

NBC’s “Manifest,” a “Lost”- style drama about a group of airplane passengers who discover that five years have passed between takeoff and landing, was the opening week’s breakout star, snaring a whopping 16 million viewers for its Sept. 24 premiere (with three days of delayed viewing, called Live+3). Episode 2 aired Monday night and slipped a bit to 8.4 million viewers but should add more eyeballs via Live+3.

Also getting off to a fast start was NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” a drama about the trailblazing medical director of a New York City hospital (played by former “The Blacklist” co-star Ryan Eggold). Based on the experiences of Dr. Eric Manheimer, the former medical director of Bellevue — who learned he had cancer — the Tuesday-night series averaged 12.3 million viewers. Nicely done.

Also doing exceptionally well was “God Friended Me,” a faith-based Sunday-night CBS series starring Brandon Micheal Hall, which finished with 10.5 million viewers — especially surprising given that Hall’s last series, ABC’s “The Mayor,” didn’t find much of an audience and was canceled last spring.

Also on CBS, Dick Wolf ’s “FBI” pulled in 10 million viewers — a solid performance for the procedural set and filmed in New York — while “The Neigh

borhood,” starring Cedric the Entertainer and Max Greenfield, opened to 8 million viewers Monday night. That number is expected to rise to around 10 million viewers via Live+3. Solid. Tim Allen’s return to TV with “Last Man Standing” on Fox (technically not a debut, since ABC originally aired the series and canceled it in 2017) was another strong entry with 8 million viewers — particularly good for a series airing on Friday night. The next rung of new shows hovered around the 8 million viewership mark — decent, but hardly impressive, when you factor in heavy network promotion. Two shows in this category were reboots: CBS’ “Magnum P.I.,” starring Jay Hernandez, as well as the network’s “Murphy Brown,” starring Candice Bergen. So much for name recognition. Despite capturing just 6.8 million viewers, “The Cool Kids,” a new Friday-night Fox comedy with a veteran cast headed by Vicki Lawrence and David Alan Grier, hinted at authentic audience appeal. ABC’s suicide-survivor drama, “A Million Little Things,” didn’t grab much of an audience for its Sept.26 premiere — 5 million viewers — but that number rose to nearly 8 million viewers with delayed viewership factored in.

ABC’s “Single Parents,” a comedy starring Leighton Meester and Taran Killam, disappointed with 4.9 million viewers and has nowhere to go but up.

Stay tuned.

Clockwise from top: “FBI” (with co-stars Zeeko Zaki and Missy Peregrym), “The Cool Kids” (Vicki Lawrence, David Alan Grier) and “Manifest” (Parveen Kaur).