All of a sudden, FOX is being forced to work hard for its money. Last night, new episodes of NCIS and The Mentalist put CBS within 100,000 viewers of the American Idol network. Meanwhile, an Octo-mom special had NBC tied with CBS for second place in the demos.

8pm

• American Idol (24.5 million, 9.0/24 in 18-49) lost 1.8 million.
• NCIS (18 million, 3.7/10) was up 3.6 million from last week.
• The Biggest Loser: Couples (9.3 million, 3.7/9) trimmed off 1.2 million.
• Two Charlie Brown specials (1.5/4) averaged 4.9 million.
• 90210 (2.4 million, 1.2/3) remained even.

9pm

• The Mentalist (19.7 million, 4.2/10 in 18-49) had its largest audience to date.
• Fringe (10.5 million, 4.3/11) fell by 2.5 million.
• Scrubs (4.4 million, 2.0/5) gave up 400,000.
• Privileged (1.5 million, 0.7/2) was down a few notches.

10pm

• Without a Trace (14.6 million, 3.5/9 in 18-49) picked up 2.6 million more.
• Dateline (4.0/11) had 11.3 million talking about Nadya Suleman.
• A special Tuesday episode of True Beauty (1.6/4) only pulled in 3.8 million.

*denotes repeat

(You can review last Tuesday’s ratings here.)