Ashley Dupre beats Brooke Shields

NBC's life-support fan-rally point "Lipstick Jungle" abruptly dropped 21% Friday night, losing most of the ground it gained the past couple weeks in the ratings.

The Brooke Shields dramedy was seen by 3.3 million viewers and earned a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49, placing last in the 10 p.m. hour up against a formidable episode of ABC's "20/20" (8.2 million, 2.5).

The newsmagazine featured Diane Sawyer's exclusive first televised interview with Ashley Dupre, the escort at the center of the scandal involving former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. The "20/20" episode (video after the jump) hit a season-high, though still merely tied CBS' "Numbers" (11.2 million, 2.5) for the hour.

The "Lipstick" rating was higher only than the show's Friday debut/Halloween episode, which scored a 1.0 before famously picking up 56% from DVR use. Yesterday NBC scheduled the remaining four episodes of the show.

Also Friday: CBS tried a repeat of "The Mentalist" (11.6 million, 2.4) in the 9 p.m. spot formerly occupied by "The Ex-List" and it performed quite well, winning the hour. The procedural earned 69% of what its original episode posted this week on Tuesday and nearly matched original lead-out "Numbers." A couple weeks ago, a repeat of "NCIS" did the same rating in the spot. With repeats like these on Fridays, who needs originals?