Articles

May 16, 2012
 

THE SKED: CBS Fall Schedule and Instant Analysis

 

When you’re CBS, you don’t have to do much.

 

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Let’s take a look, night by night:

MONDAY:  CBS confounded expectations by not expanding its comedy presence on Thursdays.  So it was less important that the sitcom moving over there have a long potential lifespan, which allowed the network to instead shift the aging but still mighty 2 1/2 Men to that night and make the younger-skewing 2 BROKE GIRLS its new Monday 9PM tentpole.  The new Mutchnick & Kohan comedy PARTNERS gets the benefit of a terrific hammock position between HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and Girls, which guarantees it at least a wide sampling in the Fall.


 

TUESDAY:  The new VEGAS gets 2 hours of strong NCIS lead-ins, as we foresaw.  With the other networks piling on Tuesday comedies and reality results shows, that makes CBS the only place to go for drama for the first 2 hours of the night

WEDNESDAY:  Eventually CBS will have to deal with the fact that the Wednesday line-up is getting long in the tooth.  For now, it’s working fine.

THURSDAY:  The network has supercharged its 8PM comedy hour with 2 1/2 MEN following THE BIG BANG THEORY, giving PERSON OF INTEREST a much stronger lead-in that should only help it.  That will boost the modern Sherlock Holmes procedural ELEMENTARY.  (Still, one can’t help but wonder if the network was underwhelmed with its comedy development this season.)

FRIDAY:  CSI NY won’t give a huge lead-in to the new legal drama MADE IN JERSEY, but Jersey should benefit from being the only non-fantasy drama in the hour against Grimm and Fringe.

SATURDAY:  Same repeats + 48 HOURS formula as usual.

SUNDAY:  THE MENTALIST won’t like the lead-in it’s going to get from THE GOOD WIFE, and keeping the latter at 9PM is the network’s other big surprise.  ABC could have a big opportunity here with its Revenge/666 Park Avenue duo… or CBS’s established shows could carry the (non-football) night.

The network didn’t announce any midseason scheduling, but has the comedy FRIEND ME and the drama GOLDEN BOY on tap.

 

 

 

 



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."