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FOX made a couple of fairly last-minute changes to its midseason plans today. The new TOUCH, created by Tim Kring and starring Kiefer Sutherland, won’t move to Sutherland’s old 24 Monday 9PM timeslot after all; instead, starting March 22, Touch will air Thursdays at 9PM, keeping the AMERICAN IDOL lead-in it had for the successful “preview” airing of its pilot last month.
Because of this change, when BONES returns from Emily Deschanel’s pregnancy leave, it moves to 8PM Mondays starting April 2 (with the final episodes of HOUSE airing at 9PM), losing its own cushy Thursday berth.
Why the change? The obvious conclusion is that FOX felt, having seen several episodes, that Touch wasn’t going to be the self-starter it originally hoped the show would be, and with House a diminishingly effective lead-in, and THE VOICE a surprisingly strong competitor, FOX feared Touch would go the way of ALCATRAZ on Mondays. This way, they’re giving their high-profile new show its best shot. (And if the show’s quality doesn’t improve from its pilot, it may need all the help it can get.)
All this is bad news for Bones, of course, which has to open up a tough night instead of getting the benefit of the network’s strongest possible lead-in. But Bones has worked in several different time-slots throughout its run and has a loyal audience that seeks it out, and no doubt the network is OK with the ratings being lower in its new situation (as long as the numbers don’t completely collapse).
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