PULLING ITS WEIGHT The calorie counters of The Biggest Loser are helping NBC shape up on Tuesday night

NBC

The once-mighty Must-See Thursday lineup became the Maybe I'll Record That to Watch After Survivor…. Oh, Crap, Isn't The O.C. on Now, Too? lineup. Despite NBC's pooh-poohing, losing Friends did turn out to be very bad news, especially since its much-touted Thursday savior, The Apprentice (No. 13), lost nearly a quarter of its viewers. Elsewhere on NBC's schedule, a less-than-inspired slate of new shows didn't help: The ambitious, computer-animated Father of the Pride was a very expensive failure, landing at No. 52. LAX (No. 63) never took off, despite the star power of Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood. Scenic cop show Hawaii (No. 67) was lost against Lost. Sighs NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly, ''You win some, you lose some.''

Despite those high-profile mistakes, NBC did lay claim to some quiet victories: Joey (No. 22) did fairly well for a freshman sitcom, but couldn't anchor the night as well as he did with the Central Perk gang. ''I'd like to see that number be a little higher,'' Reilly says, ''but up against any measure besides Friends, this thing would be squarely in the hit category.'' Surprise hit The Biggest Loser (No. 37) pulled in hefty numbers in the tough Tuesday-at-eight slot, after taking over for the rushed-on-the-air-then-yanked-off Last Comic Standing (No. 83). And Medical Investigation (No. 42) resuscitated NBC's performance on Fridays at 10 — delivering nearly 2 million more viewers than canceled Boomtown did last fall. Still, Reilly admits there's a lot of work to be done: ''We're not where we want to be,'' he says. ''We don't have the breakout scripted hit that the other guys did this fall.''

Other Winners The West Wing, up 1.1 million; Law & Order: SVU, up 1.3 million

Other Losers Law & Order, down 2.3 million; American Dreams, down 1.2 million