Ratings: ‘NCIS: Los Angeles,’ ‘Quantico,’ ‘Elementary’ all drop; ‘The Simpsons’ surges

The ratings are in for Sunday night’s television lineup, and we gotta say that this is not one that you’ll be remembering or celebrating for many weeks to come. The majority of the shows posted declines, which should be viewed as yet another reminder that this fall is treating many shows tough.

The good news – Let’s start with what is the small slice of great news: For its annual Treehouse of Horror episode (which also happened to be its 600th on the air), “The Simpsons” more than doubled its previous episode rating on the way to a 3.1 in the 18-49 demographic. That’s very impressive, but you do also have to remember that it was significantly aided by an NFL overrun leading up to the start of the show.

“Madam Secretary” was steady with a 1.1, which we suppose for this week is enough to consider it good news.

The bad news – This is where almost everything else lies. While some shows like “Once Upon a Time” (1.1) and “NCIS: Los Angeles” (1.3) posted only small declines, the news was less great as the night progressed.

Let’s start here with “Quantico,” which is looking more and more on the road to cancellation as time goes on. The most-recent installment of the show drew just a series-low 0.8, which is especially poor when you consider the amount of promotion it receives from ABC. We’d cite some of its failures as of late to the convoluted storytelling, which includes frequent time jumps. Also, it feels like we did much of the whole Alex-in-training stuff last season.

Meanwhile, “Elementary” fell further to a 0.7, but that’s not nearly as much of a surprise given that it’s consistently scored below a 0.7 or some time. We’re not sure what continues to compel CBS to renew it given that it is consistently one of their lowest-rated properties, but something is clearly working out for it. (Photo: CBS.)