SHILO: 8:00 Fresh Off the Boat; 8:30 Charlie Foxtrot; 9:00 Shark Tank; 10:00 20/20
CRAIG: 8:00 Last Man Standing; 8:30 Untitled Rob Riggle single dad project; 9:00 Shark Tank; 10:00 20/20
SHILO: Prior to putting together this fantasy schedule, I assumed that Last Man Standing and Dr. Ken would be back. The former has been a very valuable member of the ABC Friday lineup, while the latter is halfway to syndication and comes from a studio that likes to package the shows it has on air with its development class, so with ABC taking a liking to The Good Doctor, Start Up, and the Goldbergs spinoff, I figured they’d get Ken on the cheap and use the stagnancy of Fridays to focus on other nights. However, with the rumors that Last Man Standing is on the wrong side of the bubble right now and Ken didn’t even pitch a third season, I feel like ABC will end up cleaning house in that hour. But what do you do with a low-rated hour on a low-priority night? Do you move a veteran drama there to live out its last days? Do you put single cams here and use Sundays to build up your drama slate? Do you find a reality show that fits the vibe of Shark Tank and hope for the best?
If ABC had an obvious unscripted show to put here, that’s what I would do, considering that they have work to do earlier in the week and they want to do something cheaper than comedies they don’t own. However, the only active unscripted show not already penciled in for the summer, Fred Savage-hosted game show Child Support, feels less like a fall launch and more like a midseason premiere a’la The Toy Box. Therefore, I went with Fresh Off the Boat at 8:00 and new single cam Charlie Foxtrot at 8:30. Boat is about a season away from syndication, so unless the Modern Family negotiations between 20th (who also produces Boat) and ABC go majorly left, I can’t see a comedy that’s been treated fairly well get demoted to midseason filler duty. The last ABC fall comedy to have that happen was Suburgatory, which didn’t have as many episodes and underperformed following a major scheduling upgrade. For 8:30, the network could go with something like The Real O’Neals if they don’t want to launch a new comedy on Fridays; O’Neals has great retention from Boat when they air in the 8:00 hour and the two moving together would be a clean move for ABC, not to mention help ABC-owned O’Neals get to within syndication striking distance. However, ABC doesn’t give me the vibe that they want more O’Neals, so where all the new multi-cams are long shots, there’s no already premiered comedy that would go there, and neither Last Man nor Ken are in contention, I went with military comedy Charlie Foxtrot, as it has a concept that would be amenable to Fridays and fits with ABC’s recent programming initiative.
CRAIG: I’m going to go with a world where Last Man Standing works out and continues on Friday nights, even though I don’t know a single person who watches it; apparently it does very well in syndication and its live numbers put a lot of other shows to shame. To lead out I have the untitled Rob Riggle single dad thing; part of me was tempted to slot Losing It starring Jon Cryer there, so we could have two shows with former stars of #1 hit series in the night. The rest of the night stays as-is, though I’d really like to see TGIF back someday and know if Girl Meets World had anchored it, that show would still be on te air.
