NBC Renew/Cancel Week 14: NBC Are Losing Their Brilliant Minds

It's another busy update of the NBC Renew/Cancel, as one show's outlook gets even gloomier, while I practice cautious optimism about another NBC series. Keep reading to see which show is on the move and which show sustains its current prediction amid several changes.

Certain Cancellation:
Brilliant Minds (0.13, 0.11-0.18)

Likely Cancellation:

The Hunting Party (0.14, 0.10-0.17)

Leans Cancellation:
On Brand with Jimmy Fallon (0.17, 0.14-0.22)
The Wall (0.14, 0.12-0.19)

Leans Renewal:
Law & Order (0.22, 0.20-0.27)
Stumble (0.17, 0.11-0.22)

Likely Renewal:
Happy's Place (0.24, 0.18-0.26)
St. Denis Medical (0.31, 0.24-0.34)
The Voice (0.24, 0.24-0.42)

Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.33, 0.29-0.39)
Chicago Med (0.34, 0.28-0.39)
Chicago PD (0.29, 0.25-0.34)
Dateline NBC (0.18, 0.15-0.20)
Law & Order: SVU (0.29, 0.21-0.33)
Saturday Night Live (0.60, 0.43-0.70)

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

Brilliant Minds: NBC's sophomore medical drama has never looked likely to be picked up for a third season, but the hopes have pretty much evaporated recently. The shows has been doing poorly in live ratings the entire season, with a season high of just 0.18 (just a single hundredth above last year's season high), but it recently sunk to just a 0.10 - the lowest rating of any scripted show on broadcast this season (tied with two other notorious flops). It can use the excuse of having an abysmal lead-in (0.12, far lower than even the very worst Voice ratings), but it's not like the show hasn't proven to be exceptionally weak in the past. That 0.10 is barely worse than the 0.12 it got behind The Voice, and it's safe to say that a 0.1 is roughly its core audience. It hasn't gone above a 0.11 in 2026 so far, and it really seems to have no core audience. It's apparently not making up for it on streaming, as it has yet to make a single appearance on Peacock's top 10 chart this year (and it was struggling there before this year). None of this is really news, because we've long known that Brilliant Minds is a ratings flop. However, a scheduling development has me believing that this show is hopeless. NBC quietly pulled all post-Olympics airings of Brilliant Minds from the schedule, per The Futon Critic. It will have aired fourteen episodes of a twenty-two episode season by then. The Voice has been expanded to two-hour episodes again, airing 9 PM to 11 PM. That's caused a reshuffle in their planned scheduling for The Voice, so NBC clearly didn't do this on a whim. They were inspired to do it because they knew The Voice will be an improvement on what Brilliant Minds has been delivering in that time slot. This season has gone about as bad as it could have for NBC in the drama department, but it's hard to say they didn't deserve it. Instead of developing any new projects, they renewed the two new dramas that embarrassed them the least last year, and crossed their fingers. Next year will see a new strategy deployed, surely. They already have five drama pilots ordered, with more possibly yet to come. They're not ordering them just for fun. They clearly plan on at least somewhat revitalizing this stale lineup. They don't even view Brilliant Minds as good enough to finish out its season as originally planned (it will likely return in another slot, or even in this one, somewhere down the line - but they're in no hurry to confirm it), so it's a guarantee that it's the first show cut for next year. Mondays at 10 will almost certainly see a new series filling the hour, which is what NBC desperately needs. Brilliant Minds is done, and is downgraded to a certain cancellation - a spot it admittedly was last year, before I upgraded it slightly, just before it was renewed. This time, though, there will be no escape.

Stumble: No show has puzzled me quite as much this season as Stumble, partly because I think there's a chance its eventual fate lies in the hands of another show - The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins. NBC has debuted a new comedy each season for several decades, and I can't imagine they don't debut another one next season, when they have a solid comedy department for the first time in several years, with hit comedy in St. Denis Medical and another solid comedy in Happy's Place. It's not a completely fair comparison, given there are only two comedy hours versus seven drama hours, but NBC comedy looks a bit healthier than NBC drama overall, and it's been a very long time since you can say that. As such, Stumble is automatically the weakest link of their current three series, but it's not the total flop that some of its ratings have suggested it is. It's inconsistent, but it can retain Happy's Place fairly well despite not being very compatible, and it's in a pretty rough time slot. Fridays at 8:30 is not exactly where you expect to see a solid new series debuting. The time slot was always a struggle for ABC back when they had Last Man Standing at 8 (only one post-LMS series was renewed during its Friday run on ABC), and all three comedies that NBC has aired in their Friday comedy hour have also been canceled in their first season in the slot. So Stumble is doing fairly decent for its low expectations, but I'm still not entirely sold on its renewal odds. I suspect NBC believes Reggie Dinkins to be more promising, so I expect it to get a renewal between the two if they only have room for one and perform similarly. Cramming in four returning comedies and one new one (they have just one comedy currently in development, a good sign that they're not looking to overhaul comedy like they presumably are with drama) into two hours may be a tall ask for this network, but it is definitely doable. St. Denis Medical and Happy's Place have both run eighteen episodes so far, while Reggie Dinkins seems to have a more limited episode count, given its premise and cast. NBC hasn't confirmed an episode count yet for Stumble, but given the lack of a backorder announcement, it seems like it could have thirteen episodes. It wouldn't be too difficult for NBC to juggle five half-hour series when up to three of them could be limited-run series, if they really wanted to renew them all. Their recent actions do indicate a desire to make Stumble work. They pulled The Paper from Monday nights just to give Stumble a chance to run repeats behind St. Denis Medical, and they've announced an airing of Stumble behind a night of Winter Olympics programming. That might not be quite the boost of an NFL playoff game (a la Reggie), but it's not nothing, either. They like this show enough to keep trying to make it work, indicating that its Friday night scheduling wasn't an indication that they don't care for it at all - despite the less-than-ideal time slot, they absolutely haven't left it to just die on its own, and they continuously make attempts to boost it. I'm not entirely sold on a renewal, but NBC seems to be behind it, and its ratings have mostly been enjoy to justify another short run on Friday nights, with a series high just last week. It continues to lean renewal.

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