Ratings: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ season 12, ‘Scandal’ season 5 rise; ‘Vampire Diaries’ falls

Thursday night’s TV ratings are not entirely the same sort of gloom-and-doom we’ve seen on some other nights this week. However, at the same exact time we do have a further reminder in here that this is not a great time to be a vampire-related TV show.

Winners – The biggest one is “Grey’s Anatomy.” For an episode featuring the return of Penny a.k.a. the doctor whose actions lead to Derek’s death last season, the ABC drama came close to posting the best scripted rating of the night in a 2.4. This is its best total since the season premiere, which showed more of how Meredith was coping following what happened. “Scandal” (2.5) ended up winning the night, and it rose in the process.

Maybe someone over on NBC will consider it somewhat of a moral victory that the numbers are also steady for “Heroes: Reborn” (1.0) or “The Blacklist” (1.4), even though the ratings for these two shows are far from great. At least the latter can rejoice in the fact that it is a monster in DVR figures.

Losers – “The Vampire Diaries” is at a 0.5, which makes this terrible week for The CW’s ratings continue. As of right now, it is becoming more and more clear, at least this season, that they have “Arrow,” “The Flash,” hopefully “Legends of Tomorrow” when it airs, and then really not that much else. “Supernatural” is probably in third position among the shows currently on the air, but its ratings also dropped. “The Originals” (0.4) also continued to be low on Thursday night.

While we don’t exactly have huge expectations for either show, it’d benefit them heavily to at least be around a 0.6 or a 0.7 for us to feel particularly great about their future on the air.

If you missed our take on last night’s “Vampire Diaries” episode, head over to the link here! Also, you can sign up here to get some further TV news worth sinking your fangs into via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: The CW.)