After a week off last week, the NBC Renew/Cancel returns this week, as one of NBC's remaining shows wraps for the season and another makes a late-season time slot switch. Keep reading for my predictions as the season nears its end.
Certain Cancellation:
Grand Crew (0.17, 0.13-0.23)
Leans Cancellation:
American Auto (0.27, 0.21-0.38)
Leans Renewal:
N/A
Likely Renewal:
Lopez vs Lopez (0.28, 0.20-0.33)
Magnum PI (0.27, 0.20-0.36)
Certain Renewal:
Saturday Night Live (0.76, 0.65-0.98)
Already Canceled/Final Season:
The Blacklist
New Amsterdam
Already Renewed:
Chicago Fire
Chicago Med
Chicago PD
La Brea
Law & Order
Law & Order: Organized Crime
Law & Order: SVU
Night Court
Quantum Leap
Lopez vs Lopez: Last Friday, Lopez vs Lopez impressively matched its premiere rating in the demo, coming in just two hundredths below its series high. After three 0.2s in a row in March, the show seemed to have begun to find its footing again. Then it moved to Tuesday. By this time, it's become very clear that Night Court has weakened significantly, to the point that airing behind it is probably not a time slot upgrade over an 8 PM slot, even a Friday one. With that in mind, it's hard to know what exactly NBC's goal was when they decided to move Lopez to Tuesdays - they could be testing out its compatibility with Night Court, trying to see how it would do on Tuesdays in case they were considering moving it there in the fall, assess the show's true strength, or trying to compare it to the performance of American Auto. No matter the reason, it helped us learn a few things: Lopez looks a bit stronger than American Auto was towards the end of its run (rating slightly higher as Night Court was more-or-less steady), but it doesn't look all that compatible with Night Court and isn't really all that strong. It still seems to be heading for a second season, just by virtue of being one of the least-weak NBC comedies and being a freshman comedy, but it hasn't really shown that it deserves a renewal with this move. It's still a LIKELY RENEWAL but, like NBC's other comedy flops, it might be running into some trouble next year, especially if NBC doesn't continue with a Friday comedy hour.
Magnum PI: The first half of the fifth season of this procedural that NBC rescued from CBS wrapped up on Sunday, posting a solid gain from its penultimate episode to a 0.25. That's nothing to write home about, but considering the disastrous statues of recent NBC Sunday lineups, it's an acceptable result. It's certainly not the sort of result that's going to get it canceled, especially just after NBC canceled it from the brink of cancellation. Clearly, NBC saw the show as financially valuable for them if they went through the trouble to move it from CBS, and even if its Sunday performance wasn't as strong as its premiere rating suggested it may be, it should be enough to keep it around for a bit yet. It remains a LIKELY RENEWAL as it wraps.
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let guys know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
