SHILO: I think State of Affairs will do fairly well initially, be it from the impressive ad campaign or from the curiosity surrounding Katherine Heigl’s return to series television, but I think it might be in some trouble sooner rather than later. Not only does it inherit a weakening The Voice, which was down quite a bit during its spring cycle and which will have two new judges for the fall, but State of Affairs will only get that lead-in for the first three or so weeks of its life span. The Voice will go away in December and won’t be back until late February or early March of next year, so State of Affairs will have a good 5-6 episodes with a much smaller lead-in and will thus have to hook its audience quickly if it has any hope of surviving. It’s an awful lot to ask of a new show and I wouldn’t be shocked to see State of Affairs lose enough audience during those January/February episodes to where the return of The Voice doesn’t do anything for its chances.
The Blacklist should be helped by the move to 9:00, a higher-viewed hour than the 10:00 slot it inhabited this past season, and the Super Bowl two-parter that will kick start its reign on Thursdays. A similar move was made back in the second season of Grey’s Anatomy and it turned the show from a promising newcomer into a show that’s lasted 10 seasons and counting, so if a show as strong as The Blacklist can get a boost a fraction of that size, it will be a definite win for NBC. The only thing that could hinder its move is the presence of fellow ratings monster Scandal, a show that has set the standard for cast live-tweeting and reversed the expected ratings course for serialized dramas when it gained this past season. Scandal is helped by being on a night with still-strong Grey’s Anatomy, whereas The Blacklist will have a much smaller lead-in, and could keep the James Spader drama’s ceiling a bit lower than it would have been had the show moved to another night.
My guess is, though, that NBC is using The Blacklist to get back the foothold on Thursdays that they’ve lost in recent seasons and since it’ll be up quite a bit from the lineup they had this past season, it will be an emphatic win for NBC, regardless of what happens with Scandal.
Come back Tuesday as we discuss new TV Tuesdays!
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When will Grey’s Anatomy start for the fall season and on which tv broadcast station?