See, health care reform is already providing good things: Showtime's "Nurse Jackie" began its second season Monday with record ratings.
Nearly 1.1. million viewers watched Monday's 10 p.m. bow of the Edie Falco drama, up 8 percent from last year's series premiere and the biggest number yet for the show. Add in an 11 p.m. encore, and "Jackie" brought in just over 1.5 million viewers, a 13 percent gain from the series premiere telecasts.
At 10:30 p.m., Showtime also got decent news with the second season premiere of "United States of Tara." It drew 816,000 viewers in its first show -- about 5 percent below last year's series premiere (881,000 viewers).
But Showtime notes that during its first season, 70 percent of all "Tara" viewing took place after the premiere showing. Indeed, an other 340,000 folks checked out the 11:30 p.m. repeat Monday, bringing the show's overall tally to nearly 1.2 million.
