LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The series finale of HBO's "The Sopranos" drew a stellar 11.9 million viewers (#1) on Sunday, which not surprisingly made it cable's top draw last week. Overall, said installment was the fourth most-watched episode of the series to date and its largest audience since its season five opener (12.1 million on 3/7/04).
Not so lucky was the premiere of lead-out "John from Cincinnati" (3.4 million, #10), which held just 29% of the "Sopranos's" audience.
On the flip side, TBS saw "House of Payne" open to strong numbers - Wednesday at 9:00 (5.2 million, #4) and 9:30 (5.8 million, #T2) - splitting the silver with the usually dominant "WWE Raw" on USA - 9:00 (4.9 million, #5) and 10:00 (5.8 million, #T2).
USA also placed five other programs in the top 15, including week two of "The Starter Wife" (3.9 million, #T8) and four repeats of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" - Saturday at 10:00 (3.1 million, #T15), Sunday at 8:00 (3.1 million, #T15), Sunday at 9:00 (3.3 million, #T11) and Sunday at 10 (3.2 million, #T13)
Also making the cut were new episodes of Lifetime's "Army Wives" (3.3 million, #T11), Discovery's "The Deadliest Catch" (3.1 million, #T15) and VH1's "Charm School" (3.1 million, #T15) as well as TBS's broadcast of the feature "Shrek" on Sunday (4.7 million, #6).
Outside the top 15, FX's "The Shield" (2.1 million) and "The Riches" (1.8 million) wrapped their respective seasons without much fanfare.
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