Is CBS’ second hour of comedies worthwhile, and what could that mean for NBC and their comedies?
SHILO: With How I Met Your Mother ending and Two and a Half Men on its last legs, CBS needed to expand their comedy presence in order to find the next generation of hits, especially after their weak comedy development for last season gave them one series that ended up unaired (Friend Me) and one that was critically bludgeoned and unceremoniously dumped (Partners). While Thursday makes the most sense of them to attempt this, for a multitude of reasons, – the available real estate, the tremendous strength of The Big Bang Theory, the lack of comedy competition on the night, the potential benefit for Elementary – I just don’t know if they’ve paired everything in the most advantageous way.
While The Millers just doesn’t sound (or look) like the type of show that will hold enough of Big Bang’s audience to get a renewal, The Crazy Ones could end up sticking out too much as the lone single-cam in the lineup and harmed by not airing following an established performer. However, CBS managed to steer clear of NBC by having flipped order of their 9:00 hours, with the former going from single-cam to multi while the latter is the opposite. Particularly, the 9:00 matchup of The Crazy Ones and Sean Saves the World should be interesting to watch because while I don’t expect Sean to end up on top, there’s a chance both end up getting solid sampling and the NBC lineup doesn’t completely fall apart like it’s capable of doing.
CRAIG: I actually like the idea of something broad and fun being on Thursday night at 9 on CBS with The Crazy Ones, which I haven’t seen personally but really enjoyed the 5-minute promo reel they released a few months ago. Robin Williams is, again, playing a manic character and we’ll see if Sarah Michelle Gellar does enough of a good job standing up to him as Pam Dawber once did. I’m thinking yes, and I’m thinking this show will do very well. It’s a little bit of a risk for CBS, though, as Person Of Interest was doing really well as a male alternative to Grey’s in that 9PM slot; however, I think it will work out just fine.
Again, I haven’t seen the CBS pilots, so I don’t know how The Millers will do, but with Big Bang as a lead, it should do all right. Two And A Half Men is comfortable for the CBS audience, and I think comfortable is good to go after a new, hopeful 9PM hit. I’m not even thinking about multi-cam vs. single-cam at this point; I just am thinking more about what will be funny. If they bring the funny, ideally, they’ll bring the audience.
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This is one female looking forward to Reign. I’m also a fan of SPN and Arrow. I watch most of the CW’s shows. But, I’m also 36, so not the target demo anymore.
Thursday is giving my DVR a workout! I already record TBBT, and now I have a conflict between Elementary and Parenthood. NBC moving Parenthood to Thursday at 10 really shocked me. It could get creamed and I hope NBC isn’t expecting too much, or it might end up the last season just because they moved it. I’ll be recording Elementary and watching it with the mister later.
I’m totally looking forward to Reign. It looks like an AMAZING show. I already ship Mary and Sebastian. (Torrance Coombs). Such a lovely potential couple, prince is also fine, but his step brother is better :)