FRIDAY
SHILO: 8:00 Bones; 9:00 Drama Encores
CRAIG: 8:00 MasterChef Junior; 9:00 Sleepy Hollow
SHILO: Before the recent ratings drops by Bones, I figured the show might conclude its run on FOX with a final season on Thursdays. Stability is something the show never really had, so keeping it on the same night for another season would be a nice gesture from FOX and a way for them to play defense until midseason. However, Bones has been flirting with the 1.0 demo line, so FOX’s hand might be forced into moving it to Fridays and shortening season 11 similar to how Glee’s collapses led to a short final season. With Bones fairly weak right now, I don’t know if it makes sense to try to launch anything out of it, especially on Fridays. The Mindy Project is an option, but it’s weaker than Bones and its young-skewing audience might not watch it live on Fridays; the only other feasible option is something like World’s Funniest Fails, but I don’t know if FOX would bring it back in the fall after premiering it this midseason. Therefore, I think the network will opt to repeat its new fall programming and hope the sampling will help the other nights of the schedule offset the poor ratings on Fridays.
CRAIG: Repeating is definitely a way to catch an audience, though that’s not what I have planned (yet). For me, I’ve got MasterChef Junior on at the 8:00 hour, and following that, Sleepy Hollow. Fringe worked on FOX Friday nights; going back MUCH further, The X-Files did, too. (I’m assuming The X-Files will be a midseason thing and it’ll get its old Sunday timeslot or maybe even a Thursday berth to keep FOX alive on that day.) Sidenote: I really hope Sleepy Hollow improves critically for Season 3.
