NBC Renew/Cancel Week 23: Good Night, and Good Luck, Night Court + NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness Championship Match!

This week on the NBC Renew/Cancel, NBC's recent comedy developments cast a bit of doubt on the renewal status of Night Court. Plus, two shows advance to the NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness championship match!

Certain Cancellation:
Brilliant Minds (0.23, 0.17-0.29)
Grosse Pointe Garden Society (0.12, 0.09-0.17)
The Irrational (0.17, 0.10-0.31)

Likely Cancellation:

The Hunting Party (0.22, 0.13-0.46)

Lopez vs Lopez (0.20, 0.16-0.28)

Suits LA (0.19, 0.16-0.24)

Leans Cancellation:
Night Court (0.23, 0.15-0.32)

Leans Renewal:
Found (0.22, 0.18-0.29)

Likely Renewal:
Law & Order (0.30, 0.25-0.36)

Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.39, 0.31-0.48)
Chicago Med (0.40, 0.33-0.48)
Chicago PD (0.36, 0.30-0.48)
Law & Order: SVU (0.35, 0.27-0.49)
Saturday Night Live (0.84, 0.55-2.17)

Renewed:
Happy's Place
St. Denis Medical

Night Court: Night Court has had a rough season. Shifted to the bottom of the hour for its third season, it's down the third-most of any NBC show this year, and is their #3 comedy, only rating a few hundredths above Lopez vs Lopez despite a better time slot and much higher ratings last season. Night Court dropped as low as 0.15 over its run, and has been below the 0.20 mark the last two weeks as well. Despite that, I'm upgrading the show this week. I still think, as I have since before this season even began, that this will be the final season of Night Court. However, some recent movement from NBC, as well as the spectacular failures of just about every other bubble show on the network, lead me to upgrade it slightly. The bottom line is the same, and I expect its cancellation to be announced just about a month from now. However, NBC has been giving some indications that they're committing to having more comedies on their schedule next season than just the two already-renewed freshmen. They have several pilots in development, including a Tina Fey-produced project with Tracy Morgan and Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe (a pedigree that would make it appear to be a lock for an order, though no series pickup is ever certain until it's actually announced), the cheerleading comedy Stumble, a comedy about a Native American community center from the creator and producers of Peacock's Rutherford Falls, and a Julie Bowen-led project about a food magazine (which has not been given a pilot order, making its odds of a pickup for next season seem slim). Notably, all of these projects are single-camera projects. Happy's Place, which is already renewed, is a multi-camera series. While CBS has shown that multi-cam and single-cams can work together to make a great lineup, I do think it's possible that these moves indicate that NBC will be keeping two comedy hours next season. In that case, Night Court has an outside chance at being renewed and thrown to 8:30 behind Happy's Place, to make a multi-cam block, while a single-cam block airs on a weekday. I'm far from certain that this will happen, which is why I'm nowhere near a renewal prediction for Night Court at this point, but I think it has somewhat of a chance at coming back and filling the least-desirable of NBC's comedy slots. NBC could always go ahead with cutting down to one comedy hour anyway (St. Denis Medical isn't exactly lighting the world on fire, though it still does look better than all of NBC's other new and sophomore shows), or they could order two comedy pilots and do a multi-cam/single-cam block on Friday as CBS and ABC have both done this season. with so much uncertainty on NBC heading into the next season, it's hard to guess exactly what the schedule will look like, but I think there is a small opening for Night Court to return, and things look a bit better for it than when I downgraded it following that dreadful 0.15. Ratings are still pretty poor, and it doesn't do well on streaming, so I still view it as a renewal underdog, but if NBC saves one of their two multi-cams for the sake of keeping two comedy hours, it'll be Night Court. It LEANS CANCELLATION.

NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness Continues!

For the last three weeks, you've been voting in several polls to help determine our readers' favorite NBC series. It all leads to this one final poll, for all the marbles. Last week's Final Four has been narrowed down to just two shows. in the match between The Hunting Party and Law & Order: SVU, The Hunting Party's cinderella run came to an end, after taking down #8 seed Happy's Place and #1 seed SNL. SVU, the reigning champion of NBC R/C March Madness, pulled off a landslide win, after having shown a bit of rare vulnerability during its match against Chicago PD. It'll need to take down a Chicago to repeat its victory, as it faces Chicago Fire in the championship match this year. A first round exit last year, Chicago Fire had a much better run this year, easily taking down Suits LA in the first round and trouncing St. Denis Medical in the second round. Last week, it faced The Irrational, which like The Hunting Party, had a miraculous cinderella run, which included the closest win we saw this year, a 1% margin of victory over Law & Order. The Irrational put up a decent fight, considering it was the #15 seed, but it wasn't enough, and it went down to defeat by a margin of roughly 12%. It's only fitting that on a network where Dick Wolf's shows are just about the only thing still working, it's a Dick Wolf face-off in the championship round this year. You can vote in the championship match below, and you can also vote for in polls for ABC, CBS and Fox.

What do you think of my predictions? Let me know in the comments!

The TV Ratings Guide	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Mon	The Voice			The Hunting Party
Tues	St. Denis Medical	Night Court	Deal or No Deal Island	The Irrational
Wed	Chicago Med		Chicago Fire	Chicago PD
Thurs	Law & Order		Law & Order: SVU	Found
Fri	Happy's Place	Lopez vs Lopez	Dateline NBC
Sun	The Americas		Suits LA	Grosse Pointe Garden Society