Ratings: ‘Criminal Minds,’ ‘Code Black’ return down; ‘Lethal Weapon,’ ‘Designated Survivor’ fall

Where’s what we can almost certainly call a poor night for television: Other than a new episode of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” over on The CW, every other show on Wednesday was down either prior a recent premiere, or the episode that aired before. Therefore, we’re going to be giving you good news and bad news on a curve. If a show declined by less than 10% in the demo, suddenly that doesn’t look as terrible.

The good news – Other than the aforementioned “Whose Line” (0.4), “Chicago PD” (1.5), “Blindspot” (1.2), “The Goldbergs” (1.9), and “Survivor” (2.1) all posted reasonably small drops compared to their last episodes. These shows are all probably sticking around a while and have loyal followings, so there is no real surprise here. Given that most of the fall schedule is now back in action, there’s also less to worry about in terms of competition.

The bad news – Let’s start things off with the premieres. “Criminal Minds” (1.8) dropped 11% from the premiere, but the bigger story to us is that the headlines surrounding Thomas Gibson’s impending exit didn’t draw more viewers to the show. Our theory there is mostly that CBS didn’t do a whole lot in order to promote it. Meanwhile, casting Rob Lowe did little to help “Code Black” (1.2), which was down more than 20% from its season premiere.

For some new shows in their second week, “Lethal Weapon” drew a 1.9 while “Designated Survivor” posted a 1.8; the ratings for the latter were almost a 20% drop, and while neither is at a concerning spot right now, they do need to level off fairly soon.

If you want to get our review of the “Criminal Minds” premiere, head over here to see it. Meanwhile, sign up over at this link to secure some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)