I hope Mike Darnell has calmed down a little.

When I ran into the Fox "reality" guru at the network's press party last night, he was as nervous as a cat on caffeine about seeing this morning's Nielsen ratings for Fox's "American Idol," which he expected to get about 5 a.m.

When I last saw him, he was vowing to stay up all night.

If so, he lost sleep over nothing, because with 35.4 million viewers, the fifth-season premiere of "American Idol" outperformed last year's premiere by nearly a million viewers, according to Nielsen's "fast nationals."

Not that that guarantees the Northeast Philadelphia native a good night's sleep tonight: He'll likely be holding vigil for the ratings for the post-"Idol" premiere of "Skating with Celebrities."

Oh, and for those of you who may have worried -- ha! -- about Darnell's having hit me yesterday when I suggested that Scott Hamilton's a bit bigger than he is, let's just say that Darnell's a strapping 93 pounds and hits pretty gently.

He does, however, believe himself to be bigger than the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

And I, of course, am way too scared now to challenge that.