The season five return of an explosive cable series on Tuesday night, Sept. 11, 2012, has been a huge ratings winner.

The season premiere of "Sons of Anarchy" on FX "attracted a whopping 5.37 million viewers, making it the most watched episode ever in the drama’s history on FX," writes our friend Lynette Rice at EW.com’s Inside TV blog.

Furthermore, the episode is on track to shatter a FX ratings record as the highest-rated single telecast ever shown on the network.

Rice contines, "The episode was not only the No. 1 program on cable in viewers, adults 18-49 (3.5 million) and adults 25-54 (3.45 million), but it was the top-rated episode among men 18-49 and men 18-34 in all of broadcast and cable. It was up in all of the key demos too versus its fourth season premiere, including 10 percent in viewers and 14 percent in adults 25-54. In addition, it dominated the 10 o’clock hour in the key adult demos — even beating what was on broadcast TV."

According to the account of this ratings story in The Hollywood Reporter, "With the current numbers, the episode is on track to be FX’s biggest single telecast ever when Nielsen releases Live+7 data."