Fall TV Fridays: Six Questions About The New Schedule

Does Hawaii Five-0 skew too young to work on Fridays?

CRAIG: Of course not! In fact, I think it’s exactly the kind of show CBS needs on a Friday… something that can appeal to the young crowd as well as the oldsters. I grew up in a time where CBS Friday included The Dukes Of Hazzard and Dallas… that’s a young show and an adult show back-to-back, yet it worked. I also feel that it’s an exciting show for the 9PM hour at a time when the alternatives are sitcoms on FOX (well, maybe), Grimm on NBC, and reality everywhere else. In other words, Five-0 could easily take the timeslot, and it could charge up the entire Friday CBS line-up in the process.

SHILO: I think its problem is less about skewing younger/being incompatible with Blue Bloods and more about being a weaker show than CSI: NY when it moved to Fridays. You could argue that a lot of the drop that the show suffered last season was due to the debut of Revolution and a syndication-aided Castle, the latter of which always demonstrated audience crossover with Five-0. However, there’s no guarantee that it’ll suddenly spring to life on Fridays, especially with another procedural (Grimm) airing against it.

Ultimately, I think Hawaii Five-0 will get at most two more seasons to beef up its syndication package before being cut loose. Even if it pairs well with Undercover Boss and Blue Bloods, holding most of the CSI: NY audience from last season, it’s coming to Fridays off a bad season and likely won’t have much room to drop, particularly when you factor in natural audience erosion and the numbers that will be lost with the move to a less-viewed night.