THURSDAY
SHILO: 8:00 Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday; 9:00 The Blacklist; 10:00 Blindspot
CRAIG: 8:00 Superstore; 8:30 Good Place; 9:00 The Carmichael Show; 9:30 Marlon; 10:00 The Blacklist
CRAIG:Â Thursdays are going to be a little weird to start with, because of their schedule. I really, really wanted two hours of comedies on Thursday nights. In some cases like Good Place they already have a series order, and The Carmichael Show and Superstore have both won critics over. As for having sitcoms against the CBS juggernaut? Obviously they won’t be able to compete with CBS, but if they can come in at #2 or #3, I’m sure NBC would be happy. Putting Blacklist back at 10 would probably please the affiliates, and we can figure out where the spin-off would go depending on what succeeds or fails.
SHILO: There are precisely 12 Thursdays between the closing of the Summer Olympics and the opening kickoff of NBC’s Thursday Night Football coverage. Enough time for something good to come in and take advantage of the Olympic halo, right? Well, not quite, as NBC has the Thursday Night Football opening game on September 8th, thereby shaving off the first three weeks of their cushion, as starting something scripted in August wouldn’t be worth the one week break. So there are nine weeks to play with – except that NBC has multiple specials (Hairspray Live!, another Dolly Parton movie, etc.) that will likely have to be aired before football takes over for the remainder of the calendar year come November 17th.
All in all, there might be 6-7 weeks where NBC can air original programming, meaning they might have to get creative in order to fill time. While I think they’ll pair The Blacklist with Blindspot and have the shows come up with short arcs that end in big fall finales, the 8:00 hour is more complicated to think about. It’s an hour NBC has struggled with for seasons and not being able to launch something new in the fall with the Olympic halo is probably a downer, football ratings be damned. They could go with something reality, be it a quick burst of Little Big Shots or Dick Wolf’s Law & Order: You the Jury, but I’ll take a risk and say they bring back Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday. This is an election year and while the team of Colin Jost and Michael Che isn’t as acclaimed as Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, who hosted the 2008 version of the show, this election is filled with big personalities and absurd moments that are ripe for parody. Therefore, NBC could want to take advantage of the ratings opportunity and thrust Saturday Night Live back into the pop culture conversation.
