See Also: 'One Wonderful Day' Episode Guide

With the secrets of the Mary Alice storyline finally set to be revealed, and rumors of a character death, over 30 million viewers tuned in to watch the first season of Desperate Housewives come to a close—the show's highest ratings ever.

According to figures released by MediaWeek, "One Wonderful Day" scored a 20.4 rating with a 29 share. These figures mean that of all households in the United States with television sets, 20.4% were tuned into DH, as well as 29% of those households actually watching television on Sunday at 9:00pm. The show pulled a 13.3/31 rating in the coveted 18–49 demographic.

With 30 million viewers, it places the episode as the most-watched to date. The previous record was held by "Guilty" from November the last year, where the death of Martha Huber helped attracted 27m viewers. It also places it 8.7m viewers above the series premiere back in October.

CBS and NBC both opted to air reruns against Desperate Housewives. CBS came second in the 9:00pm hour with an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which picked up 11.4m viewers. NBC was third with a repeat of Crossing Jordan which was seen by 4.9m viewers. Fox was fourth with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and WB was a distant last place with a repeat of the cancelled Steve Harvey’s Big Time Challenge.

The good news didn't end there for ABC. Desperate Housewives lead-out Grey's Anatomy—also up against reruns on CBS and NBC, and no doubt helped by its strong lead-in—also achieved its highest viewing figures yet. It gained a 15.0/23 rating with 22.8m viewers, scoring a 10.0/25 rating in the 18–49 demographic.

ABC easily won the night thanks to a two-hour edition of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition winning its timeslot, series-high figures from both Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, and both CBS and NBC opting to air reruns for much of the evening. A lead of just 410,000 viewers last week for ABC, when CBS had the season finale of Survivor on its schedule, turned into a margin this week of 8.5m viewers. ABC beat CBS in the overnights by 55% and Fox in the 18–49 demographic by 136%.

MediaWeek's original ratings report, written by Programming Insider Marc Berman, can be found by following this link.

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