The CW’s 2017-2018 Schedule: Thoughts & Predictions

FURTHER THOUGHTS FROM SHILO

Most Surprising (Possible) Renewal: The CW isn’t really home for surprise renewals anymore. You can usually feel out which shows they’re going to cancel and which shows they’re going to renew, so unless they manage to pull out a renewal for one of Frequency or No Tomorrow, which would be one of the most shocking renewals in recent memory, this category for them is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even all of their mass renewals make sense, either from a ratings or synergy/syndication/buzz standpoint. Although I’m okay with a network whose renewals all make some sort of sense, it’d be nice for The CW to throw out something crazy once in a while.

Show That Likely Won’t Be Renewed But Should Be: As much as I love it, and as much as you should binge it if you haven’t already, No Tomorrow is done. While the show has a very niche concept and tone that was never going to make for huge ratings, it was put into a rough position with an incompatible lead-in and megahit competition that targeted a similar demo. Frankly, both it and The Flash would’ve been better off had Tuesdays been scheduled more coherently, with No Tomorrow‘s best case scenario either Fridays replacing Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or airing somewhere along with either Jane the Virgin or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. But after the show was given repeat lead-ins for the last few episodes and forced to air through the end of December and into January, the writing was on the wall and there’s been nothing to change my mind since then.

Possible Scheduling Disaster: Life Sentence in general seems like it could be rough going. It feels very much like No Tomorrow 2.0 and as Red Band Society can tell you, adding humor to terminal disease is no recipe for success on broadcast. Plus, there’s the existence of shows like The Big C and Chasing Life to point that cancer doesn’t bring in the viewers; that can work on pay cable, which doesn’t rely on live viewing, but I’d be surprised if broadcast can support a show like this. Also, if Dynasty airs anywhere but Mondays, things could get ugly. Tuesdays at 9:00 has an incompatible lead-in and direct competition from This Is Us; Wednesdays at 9:00 has Empire; Thursdays has TGIT. Friday could maybe work, but you’re just dooming a show to be an old skewing syndication drag at that point.

Possible Biggest Surprise: I would be most surprised to see Riverdale moving, either off the fall schedule completely or to another night in the fall. There’s not really a great lead-in for it, so another night in the fall would probably be a lateral move at best, while pushing it to midseason would doom it to a four-season syndication drag vs. having it be a strong player for them. Where it has so much going for it, I really feel like they’ll make a play to solidify it as a nice scheduling piece for them; if it doesn’t work this season and Riverdale notably declines, then we could maybe talk about the show becoming more utility player than fall piece.

Safest Bet: The only thing I’ve got is that there’ll be two new dramas in the fall. They’re rumored to like their development a lot, so I can’t see this turning into a situation like two seasons ago when Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was the lone fall launch, while launching three new dramas feels like too much right now. The only questions remaining are which of the Arrow-verse shows they want launching something new and whether Thursday might be in play.

Project I’m Rooting For: Insatiable has an unusual logline that I’m curious to see play out. I don’t think it has a shot in the world at doing well in the ratings, at least on a broadcast network, but it’d be an interesting shot to see taken and a concept that I don’t think I’ve seen fictionalized on television before.

ESSENTIAL LINKS
Upfronts 2017: Assessing Each Network’s Needs
The CW’s 2016-2017 Schedule: Thoughts & Predictions
Analyzing the 2016 Fall Schedule: The CW

We’re running all five prediction articles on the same day this year! Find all of the networks below:
NBC – FOX – ABC – CBS – The CW