Lots of attention's being paid to the new shows about to premiere for the 2009-10 broadcast season, but because of some marginal renewals of freshman shows last season there are lots of questions about the survival rate of the the incoming sophomore class. Many were borderline, or worse, ratings performers last season, so their continued existence is far from assured.
Here's my guesses on which shows will survive and make it to their Junior year:
ABC
Castle: Likely to survive. Borderline ratings last season, but gets plum post Dancing with the Stars slot.
Better Off Ted: Dead. Low ratings last spring. Worse during its summer run, even given lower expectations.
NBC
Parks & Recreation: Highly unlikely to survive. Perhaps held over to not admit total defeat for the season, and keep Amy Poehler happy. Easily jettisoned as a Ben Silverman mistake.
Southland: See "Parks & Recreation" minus Poehler reference.
Fox
Dollhouse: Highly unlikely to survive. Rumored to have been saved by a combination of budget cuts and Joss Whedon vehicle cancellation gun-shyness, I doubt lightning strikes twice here.
Lie To Me: Highly likely to survive. Good ratings last season. Gets the lucrative post-House slot.
Fringe: Highly likely to survive. Teamed with Bones, it has made Fox's previously weak Thursdays credible.
CW
90210: Likely to survive as long as CW is lead by Dawn Ostroff. I think it's still better than 50% that both are around in fall 2010.
CBS
The Mentalist: No brainer, certain survival. Big ratings last season, faces Jay Leno this season.
Gary Unmarried: No clue. Hardest guess on the list. If ratings mattered more than a second comedy block to CBS it should have been gone already. Will CBS cling to a second comedy beach-head if ratings are bad this season? Your guess is as good as mine. Has the advantage of extremely light competition in its time period.
Which shows do you think will survive? (vote for as many as you want, feel free to enlighten us in the comments):
[poll id="27"]
I hate that NBC moved Southland and Law & Order to Fridays. I like that they teamed them together, and Law & Order would of helped Southland….but Friday nights?
Law & Order deserves so much better. It’s sad that stupid scheduling might kill the longest-running drama on TV.
I didn’t vote. The Dollhouse thing messed with my head and I’ve yet to recover.
@Tom. Me either!
Castle woo! My girlfriend loves that show and after Firefly, umm.. ‘Drive’?, and especially Doctor Horrible… I have a pretty soft spot for Nathan Fillion.
I also voted for Lie to Me even though I don’t watch it / care about it…
And didn’t vote for Mentalist because it’s a rip-off of Psych!
Fringe is a no brainer. That show is complete win.
ABC: Ted is dead. I am not as bullish on Castle – sure, all it has is CSI:Miami for competition, but it aired after Dancing last year and ran under 2.0 for a while. Not to mention only has a 13 episode order atm. It might get a back order, but I am doubtful it returns next year.
NBC: Parks will also get a smaller backorder (6 episodes?) to cover the year (starts late, Olympics). Highly unlikely to return in 10/11. Southland won’t return after Olympics, if they even stretch it that far.
FOX: Dollhouse is dead – they can get better ratings with reality trash than the, what, 1.2 it will average? Lie to Me is extremely likely to survive into 2010, after getting House boost – especially if 24 is done after this season. Fringe is almost certain to survive – but odds are it will see a budget reduction and/or move to a safer spot (Mon at 9pm?) in 10/11.
CW: If CW is still around, 90210 will be back. Whether it should be is another matter.
CBS: The Mentalist is not only back, but promoted to 9pm on Thursdays (possibly as early as midseason). Gary Unmarried depends on the fate of the second comedy block. I suspect they finally kill off Old Christine and Gary gets canceled along with.
Dullhouse will definitely bite the dust.
Fringe will almost certainly succeed. Seeing the World Trade Center still standing in the alternate universe was very cool.
Mentalist will succeed, though I dont care for it.
Lie to me will too.
The rest are all dead meat.
Wait… Fringe is moved to Thursdays? ugh. I hate TV.
At least Smallville is moved to Fridays (I think).
Last year I was recording 6 hours of TV on Thursday nights on my DVR. Wednesdays had 1 or 2, Tuesdays had like 3, Mondays 4. Thursdays are too full. I realize now why that is, thanks to this site. I used to think the tv stations were idiots for not putting their best shows on like a Wednesday night when there was nothing good on other channels: no competition!
I went with:
The Mentalist: duh
Castle: ABC has been trying to get a working procedural for a while, and they seem pretty behind this one. The ratings were OK, and it will certainly fare better than their other procedural this year(The Forgotten).
Fringe: This show was very protected ratings-wise last year, only airing behind House or AI. This year it will have a much smaller lead-in and some strong competition. Still, I think it will hold up reasonably well. It won’t win the hour, but it won’t be left in the dust either.
Gary Unmarried: CBS really wants that second comedy block and I don’t blame them. The block didn’t get great ratings last year, but they’ve shown they’re willing to stick with it and try to grow an audience. Last year Gary got ratings similar to/slightly better than Christine. With AOP sure to fail, I think Gary is very much still in the mix for renewal
I’m not as certain about Lie To Me. It took a hit when it lost its lead-in and moved to 8 even though it was facing weak competition. This fall it will have the benefit of the House lead-in, but it will be up against Dancing and the CBS comedy block.
Self correction: Parks premieres as normal. Still not seeing anything more than a backorder.
Sweet baby Jesus, here we go. Brace yourselves folks.
I think the Better Off Ted renewal shook me more than Dollhouse. It still makes no sense to me (and I like the show!) So I’m gun shy calling it dead, though logic says that it is.
Parks and Rec I think has a better shot than you give it. NBC likes its quirky comedies. If the quality picks up (sorta the way The Office season two did) and the ratings don’t completely tank, I can see them keeping it around.
@Julia, same thing, I was completely floored with Ted. I love the show so at least the DVDs will have some meat to it. I hope they put in all those crazy online extras.
Holly: Yes, AoP is DoA, but won’t RoE take over the slot as usual?
I picked Fringe, Lie to Me and Castle. No logic behind it, I just like the shows.
Gosh– I really can’t say. Last year was the strangest year in TV ever. So many good shows got canceled and some unexpected got renewed.
Honestly, I have seen a lot of promotions for their news shows on the ABC network. Lost of stuff on Flashforward & V. There is a lot of critism on DWTS because of the Tom Delay thing. I’ve read online that many people are not going to watch this year. We will see. I would like to see Castle stand on it’s own without DWTS.
Even though NBC has changed the times for a lot of their shows, I have seen a TON of promos for Southland, Leno and Parks & Rec. I think NBC may be doing something right this year. They took full adavantage of everyone watching American Got Talent.
Dollhouse– no comment. I am so sick of readig arguements on DH. It may come back and we will never really know why FOX renewed the show. It’s is amusing because there has been so much buzz on this show already.
@Chucksmom, I agree, the instant you mention Dollhouse, the comments explode. I mean look at what the Summer Glau post produced. I still agree with that guy who said a few weeks ago, with as much support and protest the show garners you’d think it have a 32 share on a Friday at 10 wondering who shot JR.
I have no clue how Fringe will do this season. On the one hand, the cliffhanger last year was great- I wonder what happened to Peter’s real dad? OTOH, it’s up against Grey’s and CSI, as well as Supernatural. (I have a feeling that a lot of people who watch Fringe also watch Supernatural.) Hopefully, if it fails in the timeslot, Fox will realize the problem is the timeslot and not the show.
Better off Ted- Wait and see if the shows they have in the fall are even worse. Then maybe it will do better than the previous. However if the fall shows do well, BYYE BYE.
How expensive can 90210 be to make???? It’s got to have some pretty bad numbers before it goes anywhere. Maybe the guest appearences by past 90210 stars may get slimmer.
I hope dollhouse stays. But I think that they gave it another chance like TSCC, but that show died. I don’t think there is enough hype about it to make people want to watch it.
I have seen NOT very many commercials for the 2nd year shows. Yes, a 15 sec picture of the guy from the mentalist will remind people to tune in again. But that doesn’t work to generate NEW audiences. Nothing is on tv to convince people to watch Dollhouse.
I think the comedy block on abc wednsday’s will KILL any on the fence comedy shows. If all those suceed (which i beleieve that they may either suceed together or die together) then other networks will follow suite and cancel all on the fence comedies, and try to pair them up in new blocks
Dollhouse’s budgets would have to be cut down to MyNetworkTV telenovela levels for it to survive with the ratings it had last spring. Its ratings will probably get even lower this fall.
Castle gets the plum timeslot, so it has to produce the plum retention-levels. It should be winning the timeslot with that lead-in, but it at least has to beat Jay Leno. Who, for all I know, might be winning that timeslot, at least in the early months. I don’t think Castle will ever be a winner, and I don’t see any reason for a demo-oriented network like ABC to keep a show with such an aging audience around.
@Tom, Yes, but CBS likes to hold one or two comedies to mid-season to cover if/when the new shows bomb. Since RoE, Gary, and Christine all get similar ratings when put in similar time slots, it’s a bit of a toss up between them.