It's not very often that "Two and a Half Men" can claim the top scripted series slot in the ratings on a full week, but it certainly did with the debut of Ashton Kutcher.

The sitcom, airing its first episode without warlock Charlie Sheen, posted its best numbers ever, a 16.2 rating/23 share in Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co. That was 86 percent better than its last new episode that aired on Valentine's Day before Sheen's public meltdown, and is the best scripted series audience since "Glee" scored a 15.7/29 directly after the Super Bowl last February.

It was by far the best-rated piece of television of the night, beating all of its competition, including television's No. 2-rated show "Dancing With the Stars."

It also gave a huge boost to the new series "2 Broke Girls" starring Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings. Although it lost nearly 30 percent of its lead-in, the Whitney Cummings comedy debuted to an 11.4/16. That was the largest audience for a new show since "Hawaii Five-0" earned a 10.5/18 on a special Sunday airing in late January.

Of course, "Two and a Half Men" has received a lot of publicity surrounding the departure of Sheen and how that departure would be treated on the show. And now that the mystery is solved, it's expected "Men" will lose about half its audience next week as it returns to more normal numbers, taking "2 Broke Girls" with it. Yet, the pairing should still be strong for CBS on a Monday night.

One show that didn't really benefit from the boost, however, was the Season 2 premiere of "Hawaii Five-0" on CBS. The return of this reboot captured a 7.6/12. That was down nearly 12 percent from its series debut a year ago, but was up nearly 21 percent from its season finale.

That is a good sign for "Hawaii Five-0," which suffered significantly during the second half of the season when "Men" went into an unexpected hiatus, and stayed in reruns from February on. The series averaged a 7.0 household rating while "Men" was in new episodes, but dropped to a 6.2 HH when "Men" went off the air. But to be fair, "Hawaii Five-0" was already pulling in ratings in the mid-6.0s around the time "Men" was suddenly wrapping up.

"Dancing With the Stars" returned big, but not as big as last year. Its two episodes Monday averaged a 12.1 HH, down 10 percent from its 13.4 HH premiere a year ago. "Castle," however, did not suffer. That show clocked in with an 8.7/14, it's highest rating ever, and a 5 percent jump from its season finale. It's also 21 percent over its season average from the year before.

One network that actually suffered, however, was NBC. Its highly anticipated series "The Playboy Club" flopped with a 3.4/5. That was 32 percent below what "Chase" premiered at in the same timeslot the year before, and is 23 percent below what NBC earned in the Monday 10 p.m. hour the year before.

It had a horrible lead-in from "Sing-Off," a reality competition show that had done well during down months in the season in the past, but couldn't even come close to handling the competition from CBS and ABC. "Sing-Off" averaged a 3.2/5, below the timeslot averages NBC earned the year before.

It was 38 percent below the premieres of "Chuck" and "The Event" that graced NBC Mondays the year before in early September.