MONDAY
CRAIG: 8:00 Kevin Can Wait; 8:30 I Mom So Hard; 9:00 Murphy Brown; 9:30 Mom; 10:00 Cagney and Lacey
SHILO: 8:00 Murphy Brown; 8:30 Mom; 9:00 Welcome to the Neighborhood; 9:30 Kevin Can Wait; 10:00 NCIS: New Orleans
CRAIG: My memory could be failing me, but I’m pretty sure Murphy Brown aired on Mondays at 9 which would make that an ideal slot for the revival. Kevin Can Wait isn’t renewed yet and it didn’t really win anyone over by killing the mother, but I think it’s a safe bet for renewal and keeping its slot. To follow, since the first show is about a dad, the second show can be about moms with I Mom So Hard, based on the webseries #IMomSoHard that inspired it. Something, again, comfortable for the CBS audience, the kind of show that people are used to seeing on the network. Following Murphy Brown I’ll have what is possibly CBS’ most critically-acclaimed series, Mom. And since Tyne Daly is on Murphy Brown now, what better to run an hour later than the reboot of Cagney and Lacey? Lots of strong women stuff going on here. A far cry from that year when the only shows CBS picked up starred white guys.
SHILO: I know this looks weird, but let me explain. CBS has essentially put every Monday comedy on the chopping block by excluding them from the recent mass renewal, so there’s bound to be something unusual here in the fall. I’d be surprised if they publicly point to their dissatisfaction with the comedies and then team up Kevin Can Wait and Man with a Plan again, only adding Murphy Brown and a new show. Currently, CBS Mondays is a bunch of shows that could be decent bottom of the hour options but aren’t strong enough to lead an hour/night themselves. Therefore, I have no current Monday comedies leading an hour. I don’t know if there’s much appetite for a Murphy Brown revival, but if there is, I think using it at 8:00 could kick the night off decently. I have Mom at 8:30 as a compatible insurance policy so that if Murphy were to underwhelm, the night wouldn’t be entirely derailed, as it’s a show that’s survived a low lead-in before. Plus, Mom takes advantage of the 8:30 viewing levels and helps them launch a potential new anchor at 9:00 in Welcome to the Neighborhood. Since CBS owns a piece of Kevin Can Wait and that seems like a show that could syndicate, I think they keep it and give it 22 episodes, only using it as something of a backstop in a tough half-hour instead of a lead-in.
Since Kevin isn’t especially strong, I went with moving NCIS: New Orleans to 10:00. It’s fairly reliable, should be in step with Kevin‘s audience composition, and keeps CBS from throwing something new at The Good Doctor and a new post-Voice drama. I do think 10:00 will be an hour for CBS to tackle in a future season, but with 8-10 in such disarray, I think they focus there and use NCIS: NO as a stop-gap.
