SHILO: 8:00 New Girl; 8:30 The Mick; 9:00 Scream Queens
CRAIG: 8:00 Pitch; 9:00 Scream Queens
SHILO: What to do with Scream Queens is the big question for Tuesday. The show was given a very early renewal this season and FOX has touted its strong delayed viewing and online streaming numbers, so giving it a fall slot and an opportunity to broaden out its concept/appeal would make sense. That said, it wasn’t a strong performer in Live + Same Day ratings and given its limited episode order, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s held for midseason and given a less prioritized slot on the schedule.
I decided to keep it on Tuesdays in the fall because FOX loves Ryan Murphy, this is an easy show to build a marketing campaign for (i.e. it’s a very visually-oriented horror show and the season two concept could be striking in an ad campaign), and it’s something that wouldn’t benefit from over a year off the air. Scream Queens is very zeitgeist-y and while it didn’t make an impact beyond those already faithful to Murphy, nor an impact the size of Glee’s first season, it’s something that does bring buzz to FOX and possesses a cast that the network wouldn’t want to neglect.
For the 8:00 hour, I figured that bringing New Girl back in the fall would be fair since the show was delayed this past season to accommodate Zooey Deschanel’s pregnancy. Since this is their strongest live-action comedy lead-in, it should be on the fall schedule and lead into something new, as anything new would be in a decent hammock between it and Scream Queens and FOX does need to try and find their next comedy mainstay. Chernin brothers comedy The Mick, starring Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) as a woman who moves to Connecticut to raise the spoiled children of her on-the-run sister, has drawn positive buzz and has some of the same fish-out-of-water elements that New Girl initially possessed.
CRAIG: Here’s where it gets tricky… at least, for me. There are only so many slots, as always, and I’m pretty sure the baseball drama Pitch about a female player will have to air in the fall when FOX is doing the baseball thing, so I’m putting it here. It’ll likely get clobbered by The Flash and NCIS, but I don’t know where else I’d put it. I’m still so surprised that Scream Queens got a second season, so clearly my FOX predicting skills aren’t very good.
I’m keeping Scream Queens at its usual timeslot because, why not. It can’t seem to do any more damage than it already has, and with the pedigree of Ryan Murphy and talents like Jamie Lee Curtis involved, it’d be a shame to let it die off on a less-watched night. And who knows: Maybe season two will grab people in a way the first year didn’t.
