Now that the dust has settled from upfronts week, it’s time to begin looking forward to next fall, as the entire insane process we just went through will be happening again this time next year. The hearts of bubble show lovers will be crushed; there will be surprising renewal decisions and endless rumors about what each network could do; the sheer volume of trailers will be overwhelming, even if you find a few shows in the mix that could replace any favorites you may have lost. To get you prepared for next season, KSiteTV’s Craig Byrne and Shilo Adams will, for the fourth year in a row, dissect the fall schedules for each of the five broadcast networks, telling you what they think of each night on the schedule before assigning superlatives to everything from most promising trailer to possible schedule disaster.
Before you delve into the article, you can check out every 2016-2017 scheduling article below, as well as links to every trailer NBC has released thus far.
2016-2017 Schedule Predictions: NBC | FOX | ABC | CBS | The CW
2016-2017 Fall Analysis: FOX | ABC | CBS
Trailers: Timeless | This Is Us | The Good Place
CRAIG’S PREDICTIONS: 8:00 The Voice; 10:00 Taken
SHILO’S PREDICTIONS: 8:00 The Voice; 10:00 Timeless
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: 8:00 The Voice; 10:00 Timeless
CRAIG: Props to you for guessing Timeless for this slot — after seeing the trailer, I think this is by far the best choice, and it’s a show I think people are going to be really excited about, unless the embarrassment of riches of time travel shows takes over. For me, although I’ve admired the quality of several 10PM Monday shows in the recent past (Castle, Blindspot, and Blacklist to name a few), this might be the first time I’ll go out of my way to watch one. So, way to go, NBC.
(I’m also going to chalk my Timeless hesitation up to the original logline, which skewed a bit too Legends of Tomorrow for me. Thankfully, it’s not the same thing.)
SHILO: Although I think Taken or even The Blacklist: Redemption would’ve been okay choices for the post-Voice slot, NBC made the right decision by putting Timeless in here. It has a concept that stands out against its competition; it’s got a trailer that could bring people who don’t normally watch NBC programming, thanks to the show’s genre elements and the casting of Rectify alum Abigail Spencer; and it’s similar enough to The Blacklist and Blindspot to keep NBC’s core audience engaged, which would be good news for its sampling. Plus, it’ll be the first from this recent wave of time travel shows to premiere, so it won’t have to deal with audience fatigue.
What I worry about, though, is sustainability and that’s entirely due to the concept. Time travel dramas are very hard to maintain and if the show becomes too muddled or confusing, or if it leans too heavily on its serial elements in disservice to its procedural bones, or if it overdoes it in terms of expensive new sets/costumes for every different time period visited, I think it could ultimately wind up as a ratings disappointment. Yet thanks to some good scheduling, as long as the show can keep itself coherent, engaging, and welcoming to the casual viewers that watch The Voice, it should be the least of NBC’s troubles next season.
