Thursday, September 20, 2012 ratings: It was a very poor start for the returning comedies on NBC — Up All Night, The Office, and Parks and Recreation. Glee dropped a bit in week two while X Factor got a bump up on FOX. The Next had a big night — by CW standards anyway — and Wipeout finished its summer season on ABC.

On FOX, The X Factor ruled the night in both the 18-49 demographic and in total viewers with a 3.4 rating and 9.85 million. That represented a 10% increase over last Thursday’s episode. Glee followed it with a 2.9 rating in the demo and 7.42 million. The musical-comedy-drama was down by 7% week-to-week and matched it’s last season ender.

On NBC, the night started out with Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday. It attracted a poor 1.6 demo rating and 5.16 million viewers. At 8:30pm, Up All Night returned for its second season with a 1.3 rating and 3.14 million viewers. Compared to the series premiere, the sitcom was down by 57% in the demo but it still outmatched its first season finale last April.

At 9pm, the peacock debuted the final season of The Office with a 2.1 rating and 4.32 million. Year-to-year, the comedy was down by 46% in the demo. Clearly NBC made the right decision in ending this show. It was followed by the return of Parks and Recreation with a 1.7 demo and 3.52 million. That was down by 19% year-to-year.

Rock Center with Brian Williams finished the night with a 1.1 demo rating and 4.05 million viewers. This news show was doing terribly last season but now, compared to the comedy line-up, it doesn’t seem as bad. NBC has big problems on Thursday nights, especially when you consider that ABC and CBS haven’t unveiled their new season programming yet.

On CBS, we had a night of reruns — that still outperformed NBC’s originals. They were two episodes of The Big Bang Theory (2.0 rating with 7.80 million, 2.4 demo and 9.2 million), a pair of installments of Two and a Half Men (1.8 demo with 7.38 million, 1.7 rating with 6.78 million), and Person of Interest (1.3 in the demo with 6.59 million).

On ABC, there was the summer finale of Wipeout with a 1.4 demo rating and 4.35 million viewers. That was followed by reruns of Grey’s Anatomy (1.3 in the demo with 4.18 million) and Scandal (1.0 rating and 3.42 million).

And finally, on The CW, a rerun of The Vampire Diaries drew a 0.5 demo rating with 1.19 million. That was followed by an original installment of The Next that registered a 0.6 demo rating and 1.47 million — a 200% increase in the demo when compared to last week’s episode.

What do you think? Are your surprised by the performance of the NBC shows? Do you think X Factor will keep growing? Will Glee keep slipping? What happened to The Next on CW? And hey, what were you watching last night?