CBS hit the jackpot with the casting of Laurence Fishburne in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" as William Petersen's replacement.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, 20.6 million viewers, tuned in to watch the introduction of Ray Langston, a criminology professor/former research pathologist played by film vet Laurence Fishburne as William Petersen's Gil Grissom announced his departure, marking the firs time since its September debut that the procedural attracted over 20 million watchers.

After losing Jorja Fox and Gary Dourdan last season, William Petersen decided to take a break from the series after nine seasons, although he agreed to continue to be an executive producer for the show and return for occasional guest appearances.

The night started well for CBS as the penultimate episode of this fall's "Survivor" was watched by 13.1 million viewers, way ahead of NBC's "My Name Is Earl" and Fox' "Secret Millionaire" with 6.6 million viewers and 5.4 million respectively.

On the 9 p.m. timeslot, which was dominated by "CSI," all shows delivered increased ratings since the previous week's numbers, while "The Office" nabbed its best ratings since October, and "30 Rock" finally stemmed the slow but steady decline it’s suffered since the premiere.

Ending the night on another high note for CBS, "Eleventh Hour" scored its highest ratings of the season with 13.4 million viewers, outpacing NBC's "ER" and ABC's "Private Practice."

In the lack of new "Grey's Anatomy" and "Life on Mars" episodes on ABC, CBS easily won the night in total viewers and in the 18-49 age group while NBC took the 18-34 segment. ABC was third over all, while Fox lagged behind in fourth.