‘Walking Dead’ ratings dip again, but all is not lost

For folks who have chosen to stick with “The Walking Dead” this season, they have been duly rewarded. With new showrunner Angela Kang on board, the first three episodes show sharper storytelling, more realistic dialogue and some genuine surprises.

On Metacritic, fans of the show has given this season the highest ranking (7.1) since season five (also 7.1), when the show’s popularity peaked.

The problem: millions of fans abandoned ship seasons seven and eight during the ill-fated Rick/Negan war and are not ever coming back.

“The Walking Dead” hit its lowest overnight numbers since season one at week two with 4.95 million viewers.

DVR and on-demand usage will certainly boost that to closer to 10 million. But this is a show that regularly drew 20-plus million viewers, counting DVR usage, as recently as two years ago.

All is not lost. The third episode saw a small bounce back up to 5.03 million viewers from week two.

Over nine seasons, this is the fourth time the third episode did better than the second episode and the first time since season six.

Year over year, the third episode is down 40 percent in overnight viewers vs. season eight.

AMC’s marketing department is working super hard to get more viewers by promoting Rick Grimes’ pending departure on Sunday.