THURSDAY
SHILO: 8:00 Superstore; 8:30 Village Gazette; 9:00 Brooklyn Nine-Nine; 9:30 The Good Place; 10:00 Law & Order: SVU
CRAIG: 8:00 Superstore; 8:30 Brooklyn Nine-Nine; 9:00 The Good Place; 9:30 Will & Grace; 10:00 Law & Order: SVU
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: 8:00 Superstore; 8:30 Perfect Harmony; 9:00 The Good Place; 9:30 Sunnyside; 10:00 Law & Order: SVU
SHILO: After a schedule that was stable almost to a fault from Monday through Wednesday, here we finally have some real movement. I was definitely surprised to see both Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Will & Grace held for midseason; one of them felt like a guarantee, but both either points to NBC being confident with their comedy development or anxious about the state of their comedy veterans.
I get the superficial similarities between Superstore and Perfect Harmony, both comedies set in Middle America that focus on irreverent misfits, but the latter isn’t that inspiring a choice for me. The trailer only highlighted the show’s possibly too limited premise and its similarities to A.P. Bio, also about a surly Ivy Leaguer forced to interact with people outside his comfort zone, don’t exactly inspire confidence that the Superstore audience will stick around.
As far as the 9:00 hour, it’s curious that NBC decided that now was the time for The Good Place to be a lead-in. It ended on its worst year-to-year data point of the season and collapsed after returning to the schedule in January, so it doesn’t exactly scream launchpad to me, especially to something like Sunnyside that looks fairly niche already. If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, the fact that NBC is going to have one 22-episode comedy while cycling its other comedies through the other three Thursday slots means that this isn’t going to be the year they get some traction in the genre.
CRAIG: I frontloaded with known hits whereas NBC decided to save Nine-Nine and Will & Grace for midseason, which is… a choice.
Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside both seem to be fun, and the trailers were better than their loglines, but you still have to sit back and wonder “will this have the cultural impact of a Friends or a Cheers?” In which case the answer is “no.” They also certainly won’t have the ratings. I applaud NBC for doing something new – and as I said, these new sitcom entries seem pretty decent – but eventually, they’re going to have to bring out some bigger guns and not settle for third or fourth place on Thursdays.
On that note, I feel Brooklyn Nine-Nine was a strong light for the night in the 2018-2019 season, and I’m surprised to see it waiting. But, a run with fewer repeats at midseason is appealing.
