Jon & Kate Ratings Rise As TLC Puts Final Touches On Last Episodes

It looks like Jon & Kate Plus 8 is going out with a ratings bang, not a whimper.

The show pulled in 2.5 million viewers for Monday's original episode, continuing a recent upward trend.

The week before 1.7 million viewers tuned in and prior to that 1.3 million people watched.

TLC is trying to squeeze out a few more episodes. RadarOnline.com broke the story Wednesday that the show will end in mid to late November.

Jon Gosselin is no longer letting the network film his children so TLC is using footage that has already been shot as they put they put together the final episodes.

RadarOnline.com has also exclusively learned that the network has done some extra filming only with Kate to help fill out those final episodes.

"They're trying to get as much as they can, in terms of number of episodes," a source told RadarOnline.com. "They're stretching it out."

The network had planned to change the name of the show to Kate Plus 8 but that's now on  hold because they will not film the kids without Jon's permission.

One possible explanation for the ratings rise in the past few weeks is the enormous publicity surrounding the dueling couple who have accused each other of violating a court order by removing money from a bank account. Jon was ordered this week to return $180,000 to a joint bank account.

Even though the ratings have improved in recent weeks, they are still far off the numbers recorded for the season premiere.