As noted elsewhere, FlashForward returns March 4, presumably to dodge the Olympics and air straight through without any low-rated reruns. Now ABC has also confirmed that V will return March 30 and air at 10pm after Lost.
After announcing the Ugly Betty move to Wednesday with Shark Tank at least temporarily filling Betty's Friday spot, there's not many blanks to fill in except for the new shows. I can only conclude that the reason we haven't seen the full mid-season schedule yet is because ABC wants to pretty up the PR around its mid-season shows which it pretty obviously has no faith in at all.
I’m thinking ABC have yet to figure how to schedule the midseason shows that’s why we are receiving midseason schedules piece by piece.
My guess:
Mondays stay the same (or possibly benching Castle for a few weeks to let ABC air a new midseason there)
Tuesdays from late March to May most will be DWTS-Lost-V. DWTS airing Tuesdays at 8pm is the best option ABC have to compete for AI, it will drop hard but nothing else they could put on would be better anyway. January-February sched we have Scrubs, Ted and well forgotten. There’s an 8pm hole though
Wednesdays, all 3 sitcoms will likely stay on their slots. So good luck to my favorite The Middle facing AI. I guess they will just let the MF reruns take the 8Pm slot as cannon fodder for AI.
Thursdays, only the 8pm slot is a mystery before March 4. Shonda Rhimes dramas of course will stay on their slots
Fridays Wife Swap will likely take over Shark Tank when it ends
Sundays stays the same, it’s doing fine anyway.
Don’t they have another comedy waiting in the wings? And you forgot AfterSCRUBS and BOT.
Holly they do have Romantically Challenged, and they may sacrifice that to Idol on Wednesdays at 8, from what I’ve seen ABC doesn’t really think it’s a good fit for them anyway. Scrubs and BOT should have enough time to run through their 13 episode orders by March, they will just get bumped up to 8 when Lost returns in February and finish up there before DWTS comes back.
^ Yup Romantically Challenged for 7 episodes. Well, maybe it would have a Mondays 9:30 slot for trial run like Surviving Suburbia
I included Scrubs and Ted there as shows that will air from here until Feb but after that I don’t know if ABC will do. They would like finish all their episodes by February unless they will be pulled out from schedule or one will take Hank’s slot.
Forg – Everything you said is right except a few things.
Mondays – Instead of benching Castle. ABC could air it repeat free Jan-March, then when Dancing returns, premiere Happy Town at 8. ABC may also air Romantically Challenged at 9:30 post Dancing.
Tuesdays – Scrubs and Ted could temporarily slide to 8pm from Feb 9-March 16 (When Lost premieres at 9) until Dancing returns. Or ABC could double up Ted and move Scrubs to 8pm Wed. Forgotten will air liekly repeat free Jan 5-March 16 then be replaced by V.
Wednesdays – Speaking of the 8pm hole, they could plug it up with repeats from Jan-Feb, however its likely after Ted ends, ABC orders more Scrubs and just moves Scrubs to 8pm.
Thursdays – Temporary series airing at 8 from Jan 21-Feb 25 the FF returns. Other then that its the same
Fridays – Wife Swap replaces Shark Tank.
Sundays – Same.
Holly – They have Romantically Challeneged but I doubt ABC will air it in the Wednesday 8pm slot. It wont do well there anyway and doesnt mesh with the rest of the series (Hank worked better theme wise).
must. read. not. scan. …Sorry
Forg – RC is only 7 eps? I thought it was 13, but 7 is better anyway. Its very likely to get the Surviving Suburbia treatment and air 9:30. ABC apparently likes this one so they may not want to sacrifice it to Idol.
Tommy – Its likely ABC orders more Scrubs eps. With 13 done by March, ABC could order more eps in their relaunched veteran if their happy with it. Numbers will be bad, but they seem to like the series creatively and more eps means more syndication $$$. Also they may want to add more eps to give a longer window time to decide on its fate.
Forg – Your right. Just read a November 16 article from Thefutoncritic. ABC cuts RC order to 7 eps. Very smart. All 7 can air from March 29-May 10 should ABC schedule it after Dancing.
Holly, well I don’t blame you, my post earlier was a bit long
Dan, I think if ABC is happy with Castle’s performance they will have the season finale by May. I think Romantically Challenged could get that chance but it only has seven episode order though, so a late March / early April premiere for that show is likely
Dan, while you may be right I still don’t know why ABC would shorten this season of DWTS to 90mins after just extending this past season to 2hrs. We know that Castle really under performs when it has a comedy as it’s lead-in, and I don’t see ABC trying that experiment with a new show after seeing what SS did to Castle last year.
And I’m hoping one of ABC midseason shows becomes a surprise hit. I saw trailers for both The Deep End and Happy Town and they both look promising. Although Happy Town could be 2010′s “Harper’s Island” and The Deep End could perform like Eli Stone. But I hope not. I just wish something in midseason breaks out
What about Happy Town?
Dan, I don’t know about ABC ordering more Scrubs. They didn’t last year and with ABC’s comedy bar being raised this year by Modern Family and Cougar Town they may not be willing to put up with low ratings for another year. It’s 2.0 premiere isn’t horrible, but I don’t see them keeping those numbers.
Tommy – It might be less about Dancing. If ABC wants to launch a new comedy, they could use DWTS as a lead in to boost the comedy out. I dont see any more slots for RC. The only other thing I can think of is RC airing 8pm and then Scrubs replacing it, but RC wouldnt work well in that slot and Idol will surely kill it. Scrubs would be a better choice for 8pm since its already low rated and it has competed against Idol in the past.
Forg – I understand what your saying. But running through May, might not be a good thing if it means repeats. And if you look at the past, ABC never airs repeats post Bachelor or Dancing 9:30 or 10pm because that would be a waste. What ABC could do is air Castle maybe Jan 4-Feb 15, then possibly sample Happy Town Feb 22-Apr 12 and then return Castle Apr 19, but wouldnt it make more sense to air Castle’s second 11 eps straight through like they did its first. And if ABC isnt confident in Happy Town they may test it out 10pm mondays after Dancing with RC airing at 9:30 to see if it can hold up. And if it cant, ABC can just axe it and renew Castle.
Tommy – The difference is last year Scrubs had an 18 episode order, this year its 13 eps. Last year Scrubs premiered in Jan, this year is in Dec. With 18 eps, Scrubs had a set finale and it was supposed to be the final season. However this year the series is completely relaunched, which means ABC may want to invest for more eps just because they arent planning to end the series. So with 13 eps of Both Scrubs and Ted run out by early March, and a 8pm hole to fill, its highly possible ABC orders more Scrubs eps. And I agree SS did hurt Castle a little but, ABC gave it a vote of confidence and put it in the 10pm slot again, with no comedy. ABC wanted to use 9:30 for Surviving Suburbia though since they had no other slots.
Well, Castle and Parks and Recreation both benefitted creatively from a summer hiatus. Maybe maybe maybe, FF and V can be saved by a winter hiatus.
Not sure if there is enough lipstick in Hollywood for ABC…
I love ABC but the network is becoming a big mess. Putting shows on hiatuses is never a good thing. Moving shows here, there and everywhere. ABC should just leave shows alone!
CK – Not likely. A winter hiatus didnt benefit Heroes or Jericho. It certainlly wont help FF or V. A summer hiatus works because all regular TV series take a break from May-September. However, viewers may tune in to other series like Survivor or Bones in Jan-Feb and therefore Flashforward can decline. With V, hopefully Lost’s lead in will help the series, but the hiatus wont help V out either. Though Lost has a Dancing lead in advantage so hopefully those Lost viewers will stick around for V.
ABC would be foolish to put anything besides 30 more minutes of DWTS on Monday like it was in the fall. They need the extra 30 mins of super ratings. Also, we are assuming that ABC has crap for mid-season. Maybe there is so much scheduling because they have an abundance of GOOD stuff. With 3 comedies and 2 dramas moving from fall to spring, they might have more than they expected. When you factor in Lost and the Bachelor, that’s a lot of the schedule filled up. Just because UB is moving to Weds doesn’t mean that it will not be out for a while to launch a new show. They might play out the UBs and just keep the finale for May sweeps. They could even sub out Castle to give a new show a try. Back in 04, Boston Legal was considered a success, and it was only taking a breather. Grey’s took off even more, and Boston Legal never did get 10PM Sun back. From what I can tell from the premise, RC sounds like a fit with Cougar Town.
DWTS give an advantage to Lost? Child, please. If anything, Lost as a lead-out is an advantage for DWTS with early tune-in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think DWTS will hurt Lost any, but if they ran a test pattern from 8p-9p, Lost would probably pull the same #s from 9p-10p as it will with the DWTS lead-in.