NBC Renew/Cancel Week 11: Stumble May Stumble Into a Second Season

It's another comedy-centric NBC Renew/Cancel this week, as Stumble gets the spotlight again, while I also provide an update on the highly-rated St. Denis Medical. Keep reading to see which show - if any - is due for a prediction shift this week.

Certain Cancellation:
N/A

Likely Cancellation:

Brilliant Minds (0.15, 0.12-0.18)

Leans Cancellation:
On Brand with Jimmy Fallon (0.17, 0.14-0.22)

Leans Renewal:
Law & Order (0.22, 0.20-0.27)
Stumble (0.18, 0.17-0.18)

Likely Renewal:
Happy's Place (0.24, 0.22-0.25)
St. Denis Medical (0.31, 0.25-0.34)
The Voice (0.34, 0.28-0.42)

Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.34, 0.29-0.39)
Chicago Med (0.35, 0.28-0.39)
Chicago PD (0.29, 0.25-0.34)
Dateline NBC (0.18, 0.15-0.20)
Law & Order: SVU (0.28, 0.21-0.33)
Saturday Night Live (0.60, 0.58-0.70)

Coming Soon:
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
The Hunting Party
Surviving Earth
The Wall

Stumble: In my initial writeup after its premiere, I highlighted Stumble's weak debut rating and poor retention of Happy's Place, but I did say it still had a decent shot at returning in spite of that. In the weeks since then, Stumble has looked slightly better - enough for me to hesitantly give it a prediction upgrade. I still think this show could really go either way, but the last few weeks have been pretty promising. In week two, it slipped just a single hundredth, and it gained that back the week after - even as Happy's Place slipped for the second week in a row. 72% retention has now turned into 82% retention, and Stumble somehow beat CBS's Friday night drama Fire Country in its third week (and Boston Blue as well) despite that show having a higher-rated lead-in. Stumble is still no hit, but on a network that goes fairly easy on new comedies, it's not hard to imagine Stumble getting another season in this tough Friday night slot. Its streaming performance seems to have improved as well. We don't have any multiplatorm ratings for Stumble, but it has shown up on the Peacock chart more in recent weeks, as it got something of a push on the home page. It charted for an entire week after its third episode aired, outperforming Happy's Place, Law & Order, and even St. Denis Medical at times. I'd like to see some concrete figures comparing Stumble's steaming performance to other NBC shows, but it does look like it's currently doing fairly well on streaming, enough for me to gamble that it's doing enough on there to offset its modest live ratings. Something else I found notable - and promising or Stumble - was that it got a promo push during the recent Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, with the show receiving an on-air promotion during the parade and advertisements. Using such a highly-watched event to promote the show doesn't mean it's getting renewed, but it indicates they're trying to make it work, and that they probably intend to renew it if it can show some promise. For all I know, Stumble could sink to a 0.1 tomorrow and never chart on Peacock again. It's so early in its run, and the show doesn't have enough history yet to know its true strength. But I think there are some positive signs of life here, and it has been stable enough that I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt. It LEANS RENEWAL, but I'll be watching it closely, because it really is too soon to say.

St. Denis Medical: At a tumultuous time for NBC, St. Denis Medical provides a rare glimpse of hope. While Happy's Place is a solid enough entry for Friday nights, St. Denis is their only new show in recent years to show great promise. Its linear ratings may not be massive, but it is one of NBC's highest-rated shows. It out-rates three of Dick Wolf's shows, and it's only a few hundredths behind the other two, as well. That's pretty much unheard of for an NBC comedy this decade. You'd have to go back to the days of Superstore and The Good Place to find NBC comedies that could even draw reliably solid ratings for multiple straight seasons, let alone find a sitcom that could rival NBC's top dramas. St. Denis is also a bona fide streaming hit, having done well enough on streaming last season to rate as NBC's #2 show in the demo in multiplatform-plus-35 data, despite being their seventh-highest-rated show in the demo in live+same-day ratings last season. By all indications, it's performing better on Peacock this year than it did last year. Its linear ratings on NBC are also still strong, recently jumping back up to a 0.33 when it didn't face sitcom competition from CBS. This is a very strong show, probably the most promising off any show on NBC right now. This can be a long-term, Superstore-like success for NBC (coincidentally, it comes from the same creator), and I expect it will be. It's a very LIKELY RENEWAL, and I expect to upgrade it soon after it makes its midseason return next year - I just want to make sure it holds up after that short break.

Interactive Schedule:

The TV Ratings Guide	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Mon	St. Denis Medical	The Paper	The Voice	Brilliant Minds
Tues	NBA on NBC
Wed	Chicago Med		Chicago Fire	Chicago PD
Thurs	Law & Order		Law & Order: SVU	Law & Order: Organized Crime
Fri	Happy's Place	Stumble	Dateline NBC
Sat	College Football on NBC
Sun	Sunday Night Football