''Raymond'' leads CBS to weekly win

Allow us one final quip about how much everybody really does adore that Raymond guy, okay? The ninth — and final — season finale of Everybody Loves Raymond drew 33 million viewers, leading CBS to a sizable victory for the week ending May 22.

Of course, those wacky Barones weren’t the Eye Network’s only star players: CBS had six of the week’s top 10 shows — including No. 2 CSI, No. 7 Two and a Half Men, No. 8 CSI: Miami, No. 10 Without a Trace, and a Raymond retrospective (No. 6) that preceded the series finale — each of them drawing more than 20 million viewers apiece.

CSI‘s Quentin Tarantino-directed season finale, in fact, attracted 30.7 million couch potatoes, one of three shows of the week to surpass the magic 30 million mark; the other, ABC’s Desperate Housewives, finished at No. 3 with 30.6 million viewers.

Rounding out the top 10 were: Fox’s American Idol results show at No. 4; American Idol‘s Tuesday edition at No. 5; and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy at No. 9.

For the week, CBS averaged 14 million viewers, followed by Fox (10.2 million), ABC (9.9 million), NBC (8.8 million), The WB (3.7 million), and UPN (3.5 million).

In a release, CBS crowed that it was on the brink of winning the entire 2004-2005 TV season, which concludes on Wednesday, by an average of more than 3 million viewers. Stay tuned.