This week on the NBC Renew/Cancel, comedy finally returns to NBC, as NBC's new Friday comedy block debuts five weeks into the season. Keep reading to see where Happy's Place and Lopez vs Lopez end up after their initial airings.
Certain Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Cancellation:
Brilliant Minds (0.26, 0.22-0.29)
Lopez vs Lopez (0.25)
Leans Renewal:
The Irrational (0.25, 0.19-0.31)
Likely Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.37, 0.36-0.38)
Chicago Med (0.36, 0.33-0.38)
Happy's Place (0.35)
Law & Order (0.30, 0.25-0.36)
Certain Renewal:
Chicago PD (0.34, 0.32-0.36)
Law & Order: SVU (0.37, 0.31-0.40)
Saturday Night Live (0.81, 0.71-0.94)
Yet to Premiere:
Grosse Pointe Garden Society
The Hunting Party
Night Court
St. Denis Medical
Suits: LA
Happy's Place: Last week, NBC launched their newest sitcom, Happy's Place. In a shocking twist for an NBC sitcom, it actually did pretty well. We haven't seen a strong premiere for an NBC sitcom since Night Court's robust 1.0 start back in early 2023. Obviously, Happy's Place starting with a 0.35 isn't anywhere near as impressive as that rating, but it's still quite a solid start for a Friday sitcom on NBC. It tied Fire Country for #1 for the night in the key demo among scripted programming, and easily beat CBS's SWAT and ABC's Shark Tank in the 8 PM slot. There are reasons to remain cautious, though. The show reunites Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman, the stars of the beloved 2000s sitcom Reba, which may have led to some fans of that show sampling out of nostalgia for that show. As we saw with Night Court or any of the countless TV revivals over the years, nostalgia's a powerful motivator at first, but those viewers rarely stick around. This, of course, is not actually a "revival," so it's hard to gauge just how much of that premiere audience is caused by Reba nostalgia. What we can say with certainty is that this is a solid start, and NBC is surely happy with a new Friday sitcom premiering above the league average. in fact, this premiere rating is higher than anything Lopez vs Lopez did in this slot for its inaugural season two years ago, including for its pilot, even though ratings then were a significant margin higher than they are now. Happy's Place was repeated less than a week after its debut, airing at 8 on Tuesday before fellow Reba McEntire project The Voice, and drew a solid 0.30 in that outing - higher than the ratings for several original Night Court episodes in the slot last season. None of this confirms future success for this sitcom, but there are many positive signs. While NBC will have to be a bit more ruthless this season, they have historically been lenient when it comes to their sitcoms, and this show is doing just fine so far. Further declines could complicate matters, but so far, this seems like by far NBC's safest sitcom, and they surely won't cancel them all. It's a LIKELY RENEWAL.
Lopez vs Lopez: There was a lot of positive news for Happy's Place this week. There was not a lot of positive news for Lopez vs Lopez. While the show has never been all that strong of a performer, it put up one of its weakest showings yet in its season premiere, which saw the show return to Fridays after being moved to Tuesday towards the end of season one. The show retained just 71% of its Happy's Place lead-in with a 0.25 in the key demo, despite Happy's Place being just about the most compatible lead-in they could give it. This was steady with its season two average, but down from its finale. I bet against the show last season, assuming that having its order cut to ten episodes and airing doubled-up over five weeks was a bad sign. I was obviously wrong then, so perhaps this show does bring a value to NBC that we don't see in the ratings alone, but I think it's in trouble again this season. For one, its retention is truly worrisome for a half-hour comedy. Losing a full tenth from its lead-in on premiere night is not an encouraging sign whatsoever, especially for a show that seemed to barely even get renewed last time. Lopez is a total non-entity on Peacock, never once showing up in their trending shows list after its season premiere aired, so it's not like it's making up the difference in that metric, either. The main reason why it seems to be in even more danger this time, though, is because NBC is losing a full night of programming thanks to a new NBA deal. That night is Tuesday, when NBC airs one of its two hour-long comedy blocks. With comedy being such a glaring weak spot for NBC, you can only assume that this means they'll be airing less comedies next season than this season. We don't know how the Tuesday block will perform next season, but it seems unlikely that Lopez vs Lopez, which is clearly underperforming, will be chosen as one of the few comedies that survives. It was their lowest-rated comedy last season, and may well be their lowest-rated sitcom again this year. Even if both Tuesday comedies completely bomb, which is possible, Lopez has a tough road. NBC may want room on the schedule to air a new sitcom rather than a proven underperformer, or they could even decide to give St. Denis Medical a second chance, rather than give Lopez a fourth. As has been the theme of this column the entire season, NBC has some tough cuts ahead of them thanks to this NBC deal, and that's going to lead to some shows getting canceled that may have otherwise survived. I'm not sure Lopez would have even survived without NBC cutting comedy, but it's certainly an underdog with a comedy cut looking inevitable. It LEANS RENEWAL for now, but a strong performance by either Tuesday comedy once they premiere in November would likely doom it entirely.
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
