With upfronts looming in less than two weeks, the five broadcast networks are busy screening pilots, debating the fates of their respective bubble shows, and coming up with umpteen variations of what their fall schedule will ultimately become. It’s a stressful time to be in the television industry, as an entire season rests on the decisions made in the coming days, but it’s one that could produce creatively fulfilling projects and garner the type of success necessary to keeping the broadcast lights on. It’s also a difficult time to try and predict what each network will do, but for the fourth year in a row, Craig Byrne and Shilo Adams have put on their thinking caps and tried to decipher what each network will do come upfronts. Neither has access to inside information, so each schedule is constructed using only the television trades, knowledge of each network, and deductive reasoning. If you don’t see a show you like talked about, or if something you like is talked about disparagingly, please don’t take it personally. We’re just trying to figure these schedules out. It also, of course, doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily right.
Following NBC’s schedule release this month will be FOX, which is still comprised of Empire and everything else. The hip hop soap continued to tower over the rest of the network’s lineup this past season and while FOX has added a piece or two that will help them next season, they’ll have to find a way to make up for the loss of American Idol, which took up a huge chunk of its midseason schedule. FOX will have to make a big move if they have any hopes of changing their fortunes, but at least going into next season, they’re not as stockpiled as they’d need to be in order to change things up. Just how many moves will FOX make when it comes to their fall schedule? And will any of them pay off with the ratings gains they need to get back into contention most nights?
2016-2017 Fantasy Scheduling Articles Thus Far: NBC | ABC | CBS | The CW
SUNDAY
SHILO: 7:00 NFL on FOX; 7:30 Bob’s Burgers; 8:00 The Simpsons; 8:30 Making History; 9:00 Family Guy; 9:30 The Last Man on Earth
CRAIG: 7:00 NFL on FOX; 7:30 Bob’s Burgers; 8:00 The Simpsons; 8:30 Making History; 9:00 Family Guy; 9:30 The Last Man on Earth
SHILO: With FOX still married to the Tuesday comedy block and reportedly considering renewing one of Grandfathered or The Grinder, I don’t think they’ll move Brooklyn Nine-Nine back to Sundays, as it’s their only halfway decent live-action comedy lead-in that’s not named New Girl. Since Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life and Bordertown debuted and flopped at the same time, thereby crippling the Sunday lineup for a while, I don’t really see FOX opting to premiere two new shows here, especially since The Last Man on Earth is a solid retainer from Family Guy and gets some good critical notice.
So my prediction for FOX Sunday is that one new comedy will launch. Making History, a time travel comedy from Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Last Man on Earth), has gotten far and away the most buzz from the network’s development slate and it makes sense to put it on Sundays vs. Tuesdays; the show has a big enough premise that getting sampling might not be difficult, while it sounds like something not that far removed from The Last Man on Earth, in that it’s a male-friendly live-action show that wouldn’t disrupt the flow of an animated night. And with FOX needing to deepen their live-action bench, it makes sense to use their friendliest comedy night to do something new, though Making History will have to combat the usual trapping of time travel fiction while finding ways to broaden out its premise and make itself sustainable for seasons on end.
CRAIG: I was struggling with what to put at 8:30, but you are right, the buzz behind Making History kind of makes it an obvious choice for the night, though I wonder if three’s a scenario where it and Last Man on Earth are paired together. (Probably not.) So, handicap for me for totally copying what you had.
