Following a season-premiere episode on Monday, "Deal" vacated its stable Monday night home in a last-second decision by NBC to give the time slot to a drama series, "Chuck", for which it had high hopes. (This move contradicted earlier statements from the network that it had planned to exclusively use unscripted programming in the 8:00 p.m. hour.) "Deal" moved to a Wednesday/Friday schedule, pushing "1 vs. 100" to mid-season. Both airings tended to win their time slot in total viewers, with the Friday edition also winning in Adults 18–49 and the Wednesday edition placing second in that demographic behind ABC's "Pushing Daisies". In another surprising move, NBC replaced the Wednesday airings for five weeks with a short-run reality series, "Phenomenon", starting in late October. The initial ratings for "Phenomenon" were lower than what "Deal" was delivering.