BIGGEST SURPRISE
Craig: I was absolutely surprised by how well DC’s Legends of Tomorrow did against The Big Bang Theory and football. The show is a surprisingly resilient player, and unless the show totally bombs out on Tuesdays, I think they’ll earn a third season order as a result of that success.
Shilo: I’ll talk about Legends of Tomorrow from a different angle. Given how well it was doing, I was surprised that The CW moved the show to Tuesdays [for midseason]; I know that there were extenuating circumstances that prompted the move, and that the move says less about it than it does about how strong This Is Us is, but since The CW went to the trouble of spreading out their DC shows, I assumed that arrangement would last at least the entirety of this season. I have to wonder now, if Riverdale becomes a hit and they don’t want to mess with Thursdays, will Legends be a 9:00 show for the rest of its lifespan?
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
Craig: If I had to pick just one, it would probably be No Tomorrow’s squandering of The Flash lead; but then again, maybe CW shows just aren’t that lead-in reliant.
I’m disappointed, too, that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend isn’t getting more viewers watching the show, though I’m part of the problem, often catching it on DVR. I will say, though, with the depressing political climate these days, I’ve gravitated to something funny and while Crazy Ex is often tragic it does make me smile a lot.
Shilo: I really thought Frequency would be more of a factor than it ended up. It had familiar faces to the CW audience and narrative elements that were used in other CW productions, plus it was more serialized than I initially figured, which set it apart from its procedural-heavy competition. It wasn’t a show that I thought could become a major building block a’la the DC shows, but I wouldn’t have been surprised had it turned into a solid second-tier option for them and a way for The CW to channel their genre instincts into other television formats. While Frequency has gathered a small and quite loyal group of supporters, it just seems like it wasn’t genre-heavy enough for The CW’s core audience and a bit too genre-heavy for those who wanted a more straightforward crime drama.
