Despite all the attention paid to The Jay Leno Show over the last few days months, tonight brings us what likely will be the most interesting night so far of the new, and still not quite yet official, television season.
ABC is still in repeats, and other than Survivor: Samoa so is CBS.
There won't be repeats on FOX, NBC or the CW though.
At 8pm NBC kicks off with its Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, followed by the season premieres of Parks & Recreation and The Office and the series premiere of Community. And of course, The Jay Leno Show at 10pm.
The CW will be in its second week of new episodes of The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural. On the heels of somewhat getting its female 18-34 butt kicked on Tuesday with 90210 and Melrose Place, and on Wednesday with a weakened (but still good, for The CW) America's Next Top Model and a dismal premiere for The Beautiful Life, the CW really needs for The Vampire Diaries to retain a good chunk of its first week's record-breaking viewing to boost its spirits (and its ratings, too, natch). Sure, Monday looked better for the CW, but next week House and Lie To Me return on Monday Night.
People will be looking at Community's premiere numbers, and of course, Leno's numbers too. Despite being a demo hit, The Office doesn't pull in huge viewer totals and as a result, Community at 9:30pm could be the weakest lead-in The Jay Leno Show has had so far. In terms of total viewers that will certainly be the case, but in terms of the 18-49 demo, we'll find out tomorrow morning.
Bones and Fringe are back, making a new Thursday night where FOX isn't looking to win, but rather improve its Thursday lot in life (and get more of those Thursday movie advertising $$). I meant to catch up on Bones over the summer but got side-tracked catching up on NCIS and Numb3rs and never made it. But Chicago Tribune critic (and lover of TV) Mo Ryan has given up on Bones, and rants about the will they/won't they nature of the main characters' relationship.
Despite Mo's rant, I think Bones will definitely be an improvement for FOX at 8pm on Thursdays, but that's just based on numbers and not any quality issues...
Like Bill, I believe Fringe, despite not having House or American Idol as a lead-in, will still be an improvement for FOX over last year as far as Thursdays at 9pm.
Will the numbers be as good as they were last year when House and American Idol were leading into Fringe? Of course not. But FOX can't reasonably be expecting it to, and neither should you. Regardless, I expect the Fringe-bashers to be out in full force tomorrow morning.
And what of Fringe 9pm rival on The CW, Supernatural? Thursdays will be a big DVR night for me with Flash Forward (premieres in one week), Fringe, Supernatural and The Office (and later, 30 Rock) to DVR just on the broadcast networks.
Personally, though I like Fringe (and really liked the S1 finale), I LOVE Supernatural. But I have four seasons of Supernatural under my belt and only one of Fringe. Fringe was very good in spots, but over time, Supernatural has been great in spots.
Obviously, my viewing preferences don't hold any sway with the overall ratings, and I do love John Noble in the role of Dr. Walter Bishop, so I'll be watching both...
like you said toinght it packed for me Fringe Vampier Dairs, Flasfoward, Greys Mentlist, Csi Private Pratice thank god for two dvrs
Seems like the weak links in all of this is FRINGE and new show Community. Personally I hope FRINGE is the one left on the cutting room floor. It’s pretty much the most awful show on TV right now. Some of the acting could prossibly go down in history as the worst ever. FlashForward looks great from the previews. I don’t see Supernatural really doing much to dent anything else. It’s on the CW so it might get like 20 viewers…That’s the going rate on that network these days, good show or bad show. I’ll be really interested how it all works out when all shows are in the running.
How much Office audience retention are you dudes expecting Community to have?
This is a difficult night and the DVR does help. I’m a big Survivor fan (as indicated many times previously on here.) so I’m still sticking with the 19th edition. But I find Bones entertaining in the same way the Burn Notice or Leverage is. I really got into Fringe and I think Fringe could significantly hurt CSI. I wonder if a dip in CSI will impact The Mentalist?
I have to get in Flashforward somehow as well as my guilty pleasure, Project Runway. Yikes!
I finally gave up on Bones, I really liked the first and 2nd seasons, but it seems like the characters have just became caricatures of themselves. So that helps.
Knope, tonight, I have no idea really and since the show isn’t permanently staying in that slot, it’s hard to be too futuristic in my thinking!
But among 18-49 crowd, 30 Rock’s retention was typically in the 80 percent range at 9:30pm. Given 30 Rock wasn’t brand new when that happened and benefited from a Tina Fey halo last year, I doubt NBC will be particularly disappointed if it’s more like 66-75 percent. But of course that depends on how well The Office does too. If it’s doing a 4.1 adults 18-49 rating, I don’t think NBC will freak out if Community does a 3.0. But if it does a 2.0, different story…
I had to drop “The Office” from my DVR because I’m recording Supernatural and Fringe. And if TVD has another good episode, I’m not going to be able to watch Flash Forward next week because I have Bones + only room for one more show at that time slot. Damn Thursdays!!!
Community was the worst sitcom Pilot I can ever remember watching. I “laughed” once that I can remember.
I am a huge fan of the office but i have a bad feeling that they are going to get pummeled this year.
I think Community will hold around 70% of the 18-49 demo, and around 75% of the 18-34. But Robert, I have to say I sure hope The Office scores higher than a 4.1 tonight! I am hoping that was a hypothetical number, lol.
A 4.1 would be its lowest season premiere ever (except for ssn 1, which isn’t comparable since it aired out of the already-weak Scrubs and premiered in March). It would also be a 20% drop from last seasons premiere, and although that wouldn’t be *too* unbelievable of a drop these days, given that it faces repeats from ABC and CBS it shouldn’t be that low tonight.
I would guess tonight’s demos run something like this:
3.2 SNL Thursday
2.7 Parks & Rec
4.6 The Office
3.3 Community
3.0 Leno
3.7 Survivor
3.0 Bones
3.3 Fringe
I am SO excited for Community to start! I am hoping it will be as funny as it has looked in the previews…we shall see! Plus The Office and It’s Always Sunny are back tonight! Let Fall TV begin! Can’t WAIT!
My Thursday’s are insanely full this year. Luckily I’ve already watched Bones, Flash Forward, and Community. That just leaves me with Fringe, The Office, and Supernatural.
4.94 – The Vampire Diaries
12.37 – Survivor
3.17 – Supernatural
I’m so effin excited! Seriously, I feel like it’s Christmas when you are a kid. And a GOOD Christmas year – not that crappy Christmas when you got a Game Boy only to find out that Game Boy Color came out a month later!
Good thing I’m not still bitter or anything.
LOL
nkinsey, at least you got the damn Game Boy. I’m still bitter about how deprived I was by never ever ever ever getting an American Girl doll. EVER!
let the Dvrs over load!
Case i know mine will be
cause*
October 15th is when NBC starts airing 30 Rock/Parks/Community in their “real” slots, and the numbers I will be watching the most.
But yes, Thursday has most of the interesting storylines for Fall:
How much does Fringe shrink without AI/House AND in the Thur. meat grinder? And will Fox even care with movie ad sales? (Remember, all those should-have-been Summer of ’09 sci-fi action movies strike-delayed into Fall this year, such as Pandorum, Surrogates, etc. Fringe will get absurd buys from them.)
Will Flashforward do well enough to cover its not-cheap budget? And just how much of a lead-in will it be for the Rhimes block?
Will viewers give Parks a second chance? Is NBC ruining their one good new show (Community) by airing at 8pm (as of October 15th, anyway)? How much will Office live viewing suffer (I think a fair bit), and how much will it get back in DVR (almost all, I suspect)? Will Leno see smaller 18-34 numbers due to FX comedy competition? (Unfortunately, Southland doesn’t come back for another month, or else we’d really see what a bad lead-in does to his show.)
How long will CW viewers stay on the vampire bandwagon? And how much of Supernatural’s live viewing switch over to DVR as they watch Fringe live?
Just how far will CSI: Vegas decay? And how much will Mentalist shrink going to 10pm? (And, again, will CBS even care if they get movie ad sales out of it?)
So yeah, every network has results to watch on Thursday. And viewers have shows out the wazoo to watch – I keep up with more Thursday network shows than the rest of the week combined.
Yeah, why did NBC put Community at 8? It’s a good show; at least they could have put it after The Office.