Another return to the temporal cold war story arc in 'Future Tense' on Wednesday helped boost Enterprise's overnight ratings to their highest level since late last year.

The episode averaged a 4.5/7 rating, according to figures published at Zap2it. This means approximately 4.5% of American households with television sets were tuned into Enterprise, while the episode was viewed by 7% of households watching television at the time. These figures come from overnight ratings based on the top markets, and final ratings will be available next week.

These figures place ratings above the 4.2/6 scored by both 'Dawn' and 'Stigma' earlier this year, and puts it back at the level of 'Precious Cargo' from December 11 2002. As it is still Februrary sweeps, the crucial time for networks as their ratings determine how much they can charge for advertising, the rating will provide some relief to UPN executives who saw the sweeps get off to a poor start with 'Stigma'.

Enterprise came fifth in the 8pm timeslot, managing to beat the WB's penultimate episode of Birds of Prey which managed a 3.2/5. ABC won the hour with The Bachelorette on 11.9/18, followed by Fox with That '70s Show on 7.5/12 and American Idol 8.6/13, CB with Star Search and NBC with Ed on 6.2/10.

In the 9pm slot, Enterprise lead-out The Twilight Zone saw a massive boost in its ratings. Two weeks ago it gained 2.5/4 to take the #6 slot. However this week, beating the final episode of Birds of Prey to take the #5 slot, it gained a 3.3/5 score. However, as the figures show, it is still losing a substantial percentage of the Enterprise lead-in audience.

UPN came fifth in the evening overall, drawing in a 3.9/7 rating. Thanks to the stronger performance of Enterprise and Twilight Zone, this places it significantly up from two weeks ago when the network managed 3.4/5. ABC won the night with 11.0/17, followed by Fox with 9.4/14, NBC with 9.3/14 and CBS with 6.5/10. The WB came last with 3.2/5.

The original article is available here at Zap2it.

Final ratings figures for last week's 'Cease Fire' indicate that ratings remained low but stable.

According to SF Gate, the episode scored a 2.9 rating (share information is not available). This places it the same as the week before's 'Stigma'.

However, figures show that the audience numbers rose from 4,400,000 to 4,780,000.

The SF Gate information can be found here.

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