McGarrett and company dodged a bullet this afternoon as "Hawaii Five-0" won its time slot for the fourth straight week despite coming in second earlier in the day to ABC’s "Castle," according to Nielsen ratings numbers released by CBS Television. 

The final numbers for last night’s episode showed 10.7 million viewers watched the reincarnated crime drama, which was up slightly from today’s earlier number of 10.52 million viewers, CBS said.

"Castle" dropped considerably in the final count — from 12.07 million in the morning to 10.66 million this afternoon. NBC’s "Chase" went from 5 million viewers to 4.92 million.

Last night’s audience was considerably smaller  than the last two weeks, when the show drew a little more than 12 million viewers each episode. Its premiere episode attracted 17.6 million viewers after prime-time watchers and people who recorded the show were tallied.

The network is now projecting that last night’s show will gain 2.67 million viewers after those who recorded the show play it back sometime during the next seven days.

CBS releases preliminary Nielsen numbers early in the day and then finalizes them in the afternoon. After the second episode aired Sept. 27, "Five-0" was behind in the early tally but went on to claim the hour. With all numbers tallied, "Five-0" has won its time-slot every week since it premiered.

CBS said today that the numbers may have been affected by the return of Randy Moss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football and the Giants/Braves Major League Baseball playoff game.