Harpers Island not only exceeded many expectations in its late-season premiere, but even took on John Wells : and won.

The weekly murder mystery about a wedding on an island gone bad earned a 6.7 rating/12 share Thursday, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That was enough to win the hour, and even best the series premiere of Southland on NBC.

Harpers Island got a good boost from its CSI lead-in, but lost 32 percent of its lead-in audience. Also, despite a smaller audience, Southland attracted more people in the key advertising audience demographic of adults 18 to 49, but only by a slim margin.

The ratings, however, were in line with the most recent episode of Eleventh Hour in the same time slot a week before, losing only a small percentage of that audience, meaning it held the timeslot down well.

Harpers Island will not end up being the highest-rated genre show this week, however. That honor remains with Fringe, which picked up a 6.9/10 Tuesday night.

For the night, CBS won easily with a 7.8/13.

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.