NBC took Thursday in the demo as its The Titan Games (1.8, 6.50M) launch scored the network’s best demo performance in the slot, excluding sports in nearly two years.

Marking a second strong unscripted series start this week, the Dwanye Johnson-hosted series launch handed NBC its first ever nightly win for a non-sports Thursday against an original The Big Bang Theory (2.2, 12.55M) on CBS.

BBT topped the night in both metrics. But Titan Games edged CBS’s original Young Sheldon (1.7, 10.89M), Fox’s Gotham premiere (0.7, 2.58M) and The Orville (0.6, 2.82M).

Gotham’s final season starter slid slightly, while The Orville’s move to its regular timeslot dropped 9/10th relative to Sunday’s NFL-fueled season starter, to mark a new series low.

Over on CBS, Both Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon had moved up 1/10th over last episode.

Following Titan Games, NBC’s 10 PM The Blacklist debut (0.9, 5.95M) tied CBS’s S.W.A.T. (0.9, 5.95M), which climbed 2/10th from most recent episode and is poised to hit season highs.

At 9 PM, ABC’s special The Last Days of John F. Kennedy Jr. (0.7, 5.44M) drew the network’s biggest non-sports audience to the 2-hour time period in one year,building on its lead-in: back to back The Connors repeats (0.7, 3.77M; 0.6, 3.51M)

CBS (1.3, 8.119M) owned the night in total viewers, but NBC (1.5, 5.732M) took the demo win. ABC (0.7, 4.841M) was No. 3 for the night, followed by Fox (0.6, 2.699M) and CW (0.2, 687K), which had aired repeats of Supernatural (0.2, 760K)) and Legacies (0.2, 610K).