'Frasier,' 'Buffy' Soar, Jason Sinks

By Stephen M. Silverman

10/04/2001 at 02:34 PM EDT

"Bob Patterson," ABC's heavily promoted (but critically lambasted) new comedy starring "Seinfeld" veteran Jason Alexander as a motivational speaker, got off to a poor start in its debut Tuesday, attracting only 9.8 million viewers. In that same timeslot over on NBC, 16.5 million tuned in for "Frasier." That established sitcom helped pave the way for NBC's new medical comedy "Scrubs," which lost only 7% of the "Frasier" audience and attracted 15.4 million viewers. In other season premiere news, UPN launched the WB network's former series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" with a special two-hour premiere episode that drew 7.7 million viewers, the second-largest audience in that show's history. And in still more TV news, ABC is reportedly developing a comedy series based on the summer movie hit "Legally Blonde," about a young California sorority queen who attends Harvard Law School and discovers that she's smarter than her ex-boyfriend. Reese Witherspoon starred in the movie.