FRIDAY
SHILO’S PREDICTIONS: 8:00 Fresh Off the Boat; 8:30 Charlie Foxtrot; 9:00 Shark Tank; 10:00 20/20
CRAIG’S PREDICTIONS: 8:00 Last Man Standing; 8:30 Untitled Rob Riggle Single Dad Project; 9:00 Shark Tank; 10:00 20/20
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: 8:00 Once Upon a Time; 9:00 Marvel’s Inhumans; 10:00 20/20
SHILO: This feels like a disaster in the making. After a season where it dropped 30% and permanently went below a 1.0 in the demo, Once Upon a Time has its supporting cast gutted and moves to the lowest-viewed night on television. Not only that, it has 22 episodes again, so if viewers don’t take to the creative changes in season seven, spring could be especially ugly. It’s a massive downgrade from the multi-cam hour that ABC did away with and provides an awful lead-in for Marvel’s Inhumans, which I thought was going to be one of the biggest priorities of the fall. It’s bizarre that a Friday drama airing after an aging Once Upon a Time is going to have the type of massive rollout that Inhumans will get, so my hunch is that the creative isn’t where ABC wanted it to be, and while I acknowledge that genre shows have worked on Fridays before, those that do tend to have procedural elements, which Inhumans doesn’t. I don’t think things will be that much improved once SHIELD subs in at 9:00, assuming it doesn’t take over for The Gospel of Kevin, so ABC has just sacrificed a pretty decent Friday lineup for Idol. Hope it was worth it.
CRAIG: I really don’t see what the point was in renewing Once Upon a Time if it’s being shuffled off to Fridays. The lack of a public release for the Inhumans trailer + that awful first promo image + keeping it on Friday doesn’t scream “vote of confidence,” either. Cheaper reality (including, yes, Shark Tank) worked on Friday. Sitcoms worked on Friday. Why mess with that?
