After sinking to a season and nearly series low a few weeks ago, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” seems to be back on track, thanks in part to last week’s killer supermarket episode in which two minor characters were bumped off.

“Housewives” averaged a 9.0 last night, according to Nielsen overnights, equaling the 9.0 for the supermarket episode the week before and matching its best rating since its September debut.

Though “Housewives” still remains down from last season, it’s no longer losing audience. A month ago, it hit a low of 8.0. But the past three weeks it has gained or equaled the previous week’s 18-49 rating, and that’s come against two of the highest-rated “Sunday Night Football” games of the season on competing NBC.

Last night “Housewives” averaged 22.1 million total viewers, 400,000 fewer than the previous week.

After a backlash last season over what some considered the dulling of the show’s considerable wit, “Housewives” seems to have regained its creative spark this season, with creator Marc Cherry overseeing things more closely. The supermarket episode in particular received critical kudos, and perhaps some former fans who checked in to see who got killed stuck around this week.

“Housewives” helped ABC finish a close second for the evening to NBC, averaging a 5.7 rating and 14 share to the latter’s 5.8/14. Fox was third at 4.6/11, followed by CBS at 3.6/9 and Univision and the CW tied at 1.0/2.

Due to the live nature of sports programming on Fox and NBC, final ratings may change as fast nationals measure time period and not actual program data. Fox had runover from several NFL games, and NBC carried the New York Giants-Chicago Bears game.

At 7 p.m., Fox’s NFL overrun led with a 5.6, followed by NBC’s “Football Night in America” and CBS’s “60 Minutes” at 3.2, ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” at 3.1, Univision’s “La Hora Pico” at 1.1, and CW’s “Smallville” repeat at 0.7.

At 8 p.m., NBC’s final 15 minutes of “America” and the first 45 minutes of “SNF” led with a 6.3, followed by “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” at 5.4, Fox’s “The Simpsons” (5.2) and “American Dad” (3.9) at 4.6, CBS’s “Amazing Race” at 3.4, CW’s “7th Heaven” at 1.4, and Univision’s “Reyes de la Cancion” at 0.9.

At 9 p.m., “Housewives” led with a 9.0, followed by NBC’s “SNF” at 7.0, CBS’s “Cold Case” at 3.7, Fox’s “Family Guy” (4.3) and “War at Home” (2.8) at 3.6, CW’s “America’s Next Top Model” rerun at 1.0, and Univision’s “Reyes” at 0.9.

At 10 p.m., NBC took the lead with “SNF’s” 6.7, followed by ABC’s 5.2 for “Brothers & Sisters,” CBS’s 4.1 for “Without a Trace,” and Univision’s “Reyes” at 1.0.

Among households, NBC led with a 9.6/15, followed by ABC’s 9.3/14, CBS’s 9.1/14, Fox’s 6.5/10, CW’s 1.7/3, and Univision’s 1.4/2.