THURSDAY
SHILO: Having grown from The Voice on multiple occasions, The Blacklist is strong enough to be an anchor and could be the perfect solution for NBC’s Thursday troubles. The network needs to act quickly and decisively when it comes to their formerly dominant night and a combination of buzzy, broad Blacklist and espionage thriller Allegiance (possibly timesharing the slot with conspiracy thriller Odyssey) seems like a way to bring eyes back to NBC Thursdays – for good reasons. The latter, especially, could be a show ready to stand up to Scandal in the hour and keep the ABC political soap from running away from the competition in the ratings for a third consecutive season. The 8:00 hour, meanwhile, should see the final season of Parks and Recreation at 8:00. While the network might like to try something else at 8:00, Parks isn’t strong enough to go anywhere else and isn’t enough of a priority to receive a sizable lead-in from something else; 8:30, I think, could see Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a comedy produced by Tina Fey and starring The Office’s Ellie Kemper. It has a unique enough concept (woman escapes from a cult) that could make some noise, while Kemper is familiar to NBC audiences and Fey’s humor has proven to be a good match for Amy Poehler’s.
CRAIG: I’ll believe it’s a final season of Parks when NBC finally gets a stable group of comedies — something that could happen with all of the short runs they’ve picked up. With that said, I’m keeping four comedies on Thursday nights, whether it works or not.
So, for me Parks would be on at 8, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or whatever it is they are calling it on this day of the week at 8:30, About a Boy at 9, and new comedy A to Z at 9:30. At 10, assuming and hoping negotiations work out, I’d slot Parenthood, though I fully expect a shorter season so that the time slot can be opened up for something else at midseason. I like your suggested schedule a lot, though.
FRIDAY
SHILO: Although NBC’s genre bloc hasn’t necessarily paid off for them yet, I really do like the idea of using Grimm to grow their scripted slate and I think they have enough product either in development or already in production to where it won’t be going away. As such, I think Constantine, based on the DC Comics character, might be headed for the night; centered on a supernatural detective, it sounds much more compatible with Grimm than either Dracula or Hannibal were, while a pickup would help foster a relationship between NBC and DC and the series would get the largest launch platform it could by airing in the fall.
CRAIG: My ideal schedule would be exactly the same. Dateline, Grimm, Constantine. I know networks are usually hesitant to launch new projects on Fridays, but in this case, it could work… also, remember that Grimm was also launched on a Friday and it did very well. In this situation, too, Constantine on Friday might keep it from getting mixed up with the other DC Comics TV adaptations that will surely hit earlier in the week.
One more page to navigate, as we talk about midseason and share our compiled schedules.
2 Comments
Hey, news came out that Dracula was canceled by NBC today. I’ve seen comments this week that it’s an international production and as such could be airing in other countries even if it’s not in the US. Is this true? Will a season 2 air outside the US, like Saving Hope is a Canadian show that keeps going even though NBC didn’t want to air it anymore?
What about the biggest loser? Also The Celebrity Apprentice was officially renewed back in March and is already done filming, so I can see that maybe being on the fall schedule