Gotham Renewed for Fifth and Final Season

One of Fox's longest-running dramas is renewed, but there's a caveat. Gotham will get a fifth season on Fox, but that will be its final one. The show made the move to Thursdays this season and hasn't held up well, going as low as 0.6. This decision comes just days after the cancellation of fellow WB drama Lucifer and hours after the renewal of Lethal Weapon. An episode count for season five has yet to be announced.

What do you think of this news? Let us know in the comments below.

FOX Announces Fall Premiere Dates For the 2017-18 Season (UPDATED)

FOX has released the premiere dates for shows that will return in the fall. This includes a special two-part premiere for The Orville. Full dates and times below.

July 28, 2017 Update: Fox has decided to move the season four premiere of Gotham & the timeslot debut of The Orville from September 28 to September 21 in order to shrink the time gap between The Orville's second and third episode. These changes are noted in the table below.

	Sunday, September 10, 2017
NEW	The Orville (8:00pm-9:00pm) (Series Premiere Pt 1)
	Sunday, September 17, 2017
NEW	The Orville (8:00pm-9:00pm) (Series Premiere Pt 2)
	Thursday, September 21, 2017
Season 4 Premiere	Gotham (8:00pm-9:00pm)
NEW	The Orville (9:00pm-10:00pm) (Timeslot Debut)
6	Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Season 2 Premiere	Lethal Weapon (8:00pm-9:00pm)
Season 2 Premiere	The Mick (9:00pm-9:30pm)
Season 5 Premiere	Brooklyn Nine-Nine (9:30pm-10:00pm)
	Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Season 4 Premiere	Empire (8:00pm-9:00pm)
Season 2 Premiere	Star (9:00pm-10:00pm)
	Friday, September 29, 2017
Season 17 Premiere	Hell’s Kitchen (8:00pm-9:00pm)
Season 2 Premiere	The Exorcist (9:00pm-10:00pm)
	Sunday, October 1, 2017
Season 8 Premiere	Bob’s Burgers (7:30pm-8:00pm)
Season 29 Premiere	The Simpsons (8:00pm-8:30pm)
NEW	Ghosted (8:30pm-9:00pm)
Season 15 Premiere	Family Guy (9:00pm-9:30pm)
Season 4 Premiere	The Last Man on Earth (9:30pm-10:00pm)
	Monday, October 2, 2017
Season 3 Premiere	Lucifer (8:00pm-9:00pm)
NEW	The Gifted (9:00pm-10:00pm)

 Leave your thoughts in the comment section below. 

A Look Ahead to FOX's Fall Season

As you may know, I'm slated to cover FOX Renew/Cancel Watch this season again. My only missed predictions last season were Bones and Sleepy Hollow, though I understand completely why they were renewed (click here for more information). But now it's time to look ahead to the fall season, and while I'm not going to make any concrete predictions right now, I can still preview what that first table may just look like. So without further ado, here's my first analysis. I've broken it up into several categories, though when the table comes it'll be back to "Certain to be Renewed", "Likely to be Renewed", etc.

The Obvious Renewals
The Simpsons
Family Guy
Gotham
Empire

The Simpsons is going into its 28th season, still pulls in relatively good ratings, and it's a very strong player in syndication and merchandise. They have way bigger things to worry about than The Simpsons. The same goes for Family Guy; it's not as big as it once was, even in relative ratings, but FOX loves Seth MacFarlane and Family Guy is still one of their highest-rated and reliable shows. On the syndication front, Gotham will only need one more season to get there after this season, though if it struggles this season Warner Brothers may need to reduce the licensing fee (or you know, The CW is always there!). But it's not like Gotham's ratings are terrible, so it should be fine either way. And finally, there's Empire, one of the biggest success story on all of television in recent seasons. Need I say more?

The Promising Newbies
Son of Zorn
Lethal Weapon
Pitch

FOX is really into doing business with Lord Miller Productions these days, with Son of Zorn and midseason entry Making History joining The Last Man On Earth on their schedule. Considering they're premiering it after The OT and it gets probably the best time slot they could offer it and it's very on brand for FOX Sunday, it has everything going for it right now. I can't say whether or not it'll be renewed since we haven't seen ratings, but I can tell you that it looks promising. Similarly, Pitch is getting great attention online and will most likely receive a ton of advertising during the MLB playoffs. Combine that with the fact that its presumed W18-34 skew is something that is highly coveted and we've found ourselves a promising show that may be hindered by its time slot. The time slot that would be most ideal for it would be Wednesdays before Empire, which is instead going to Lethal Weapon, which has time slot hit written all over it.

The Promising Veterans
The Last Man On Earth
New Girl
Scream Queens
Lucifer

Although The Last Man On Earth is far from a ratings powerhouse, it's from Lord Miller Productions and brings in a lot of awards love, more so than Empire or really any other show they air. I can't speak for Season 2 but Season 1 also had a lot of streaming presence due to its young skew and serialized nature. While it's not grandaddied into a renewal like The Simpsons, there are shows that are probably in a little bit more trouble (more on that later). Similarly, there's New Girl, which before last season began I thought for sure would be its last, but it proved to be stable and at least better than their other Tuesday entries. This could very well be its last season, but it wouldn't be because the ratings are terrible, it would because it's getting old. But I think they can get more out of it as they want. Then there's Scream Queens, which apparently sees great C3 and streaming bounces. There's more to it for this show than just the live ratings, and I think it'll be around as long as those jumps are too. And finally, promising midseason entry Lucifer did well last season behind The X-Files and respectable behind Gotham, enough to earn it a renewal and a fall spot. While it's bound to decline a lot this season due to its average being front loaded, its respectable ratings landed it in this category.

The Not Promising Newbie
The Exorcist

The Exorcist and Sleepy Hollow will time share on Fridays this season, and it's already very hard to say which will be the lesser of the worse. There's no hype for it at all, and while that doesn't necessarily mean it won't do well, the other three newbies have much more going for them already than this one does.

The Not Promising Veteran
Rosewood

In recent years, FOX hasn't been known to cancel a show after its second season; though a few of times they've gone three limited seasons. Rosewood may be an exception, and its situation reminds me a lot like Touch's situation a few years back. Touch had poor retention from its lead-in in its first season and the half-hours were ugly. It went from a 3.3 to a 1.3 in the same time slot over the course of 11 episodes. When they downgraded its time slot to Fridays the following season, it held up surprisingly well, down only 67% year-to-year. OK, so maybe that's not to great. And considering it finished with a string of 0.6s in the 2012-13 season, it pretty obviously go canceled. Like Touch, Rosewood is going from a show that did OK in its plum time slot that had half-hours to show it only did well because of the time slot, and now is seeing a downgrade to having to go against The Big Bang Theory, football, and Grey's Anatomy. It doesn't see any of those bounces that FOX brags about a lot of their shows getting in DVR or streaming, and doesn't hit those young demographics when it airs by itself, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Rosewood gone. Maybe it'll hold well, but that 0.8 finale says it won't.

The Respectable
Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a workplace comedy distributed by NBC Universal that snuck its way onto FOX. It's like if ABC randomly decided that instead of picking up American Housewife CBS was going to buy it from them. Brooklyn Nine-Nine had great exposure on Sunday, but lost all that momentum and then some when it had to anchor Tuesday nights unsuccessfully. It was surrounded by duds, but this fourth season was pretty much ensured one way or another for syndication purposes anyway. It doesn't do terrible, but FOX has a few new comedies this season, and if enough of them hit then Brooklyn Nine-Nine could be in trouble, especially since they don't own it. This season, it only gets harder, as it'll be facing The Voice, NCIS, and The Middle. Maybe Hulu would be interested in a fifth season if need be, but for now, while I can't group it with New Girl in the promising category, it's also no Rosewood.

Fates Decided
Bob's Burgers--Renewed
Bones--Ending

What are your thoughts? Make sure to leave them below, and once ratings start coming in look out for the first FOX Renew/Cancel Watch of the season!

It's Only Smoo's Opinion: An Uneventful Fall Ratings Season

HerCampus

For those of you joining my editorials, I hope you appreciate my colorful positions and know they do not represent the opinion of this site and its contributors as a whole. The issue I'm addressing in this article relates to the fall performances early into the season. To be perfectly frank, this season has not been bad nor dynamite with ratings. The network averages are slightly down, albeit the returning shows are surprisingly stable. No show is creating ratings fireworks, but then again, almost all of the returning shows are in threatening positions. As predicted, Empire eroded, as did The Big Bang. However, both are settling into new territories and are still their network's highest scripted shows. ABC's TGIT now enjoys shows rated in the 2.0 territory, a far cry from its 3.0+ glory last fall. But ABC still dominates all three hours in scripted material. Wednesday is, well, dull with ratings. ABC's sitcoms are down, yet solid. Nashville is sinking further in the 1.0 territory and placing 3rd in its timeslot, only .1 and .3 behind other networks' competition.

Huffington Post

For those of us rooting for our scripted series to survive, we can take comfort that the new norm is a show attaining a 1.5 rating. My own pallet of returning shows includes Brooklyn 99, Fresh Off the Boat, The Goldbergs and Blackish. I also await the premieres of Mom, 2 Broke Girls and Mike and Molly. I predict all will place between 1.7 and 2.3 ratings, which is more than respectable for CBS. Among the freshman pilots, I am following Grandfathered and Scream Queens, both of which are hovering around the 1.0 mark. Their outlook is questionable, but they also air on Fox, which now holds a lower bar for acceptable scripted ratings. Scream Queens may have a shorter shelf life due to the limited premise, but Grandfathered may easily be renewed as the premise has potential. Quantico has a tougher premise to invest in, yet has respectable ratings (for Sunday) and leans toward renewal.

Music Times

Early into 2015, the networks have similar patterns from one year ago. Mondays are still dominated by reality-TV heavy NBC, followed second my moderately successful CBS. ABC is aging and steadily declining, while Fox struggles as Gotham has plateaued, and Sleepy Hollow declines below 1.0. Tuesdays have been gracious to ABC, which is regularly placing 3rd for the evening despite airing repeats in the 10pm hour. NBC again leads the evening with the Voice, followed second by stable CBS. And Fox again struggles to ignite fireworks and remains in the shark's grip of CW's leading evening overtaking it for 4th Place. Wednesdays are a carbon copy of the previous season. Fox holds its only winning evening during the week, followed by ABC's strong delivery of sitcoms. CBS trails in 3rd Place, and NBC's solid scripted evening takes 4th Place as Mysteries of Laura weighs down seasoned veterans SVU and Chicago PD. And Thursdays are a rinse and repeat of our last season. CBS rules with Football, and will likely still rank high with its sitcom block. ABC is solid, NBC a joke and Fox forgettable.

Even the shows losing viewers is anti-climatic and lacking urgency. Empire hemorrhaged 2 ratings points in a demo slide. But Empire appears to be stable in the high 4's, and could survive losing another 2 ratings points and be heralded a ratings juggernaut for Fox. ABC is experiencing ratings drama for Castle and Nashville, but does anyone care? Castle is in its 8th season and ranking close to its ailing CBS competition, NCIS: LA. And Nashville has reached syndication and likely stands poised to overtake CBS' misfire Code Black. Over at CBS, it has three troubled dramas, all ranking at or close to the 1.0 mark. CSI: Cyber is certain to be cancelled, but who cares? It's a Sunday show, and the drama surrounding its failure pales compared to last season when Revenge declined. NCIS: LA is now hovering lower on the radar, but does anybody notice? Even Hawaii 5-0 isn't generating any low-rated buzz, as it was "Certain to Be Cancelled" last season. The fans must laugh, as this show could likely see S7 and S8 as the pilots collapse around them like houses built on fault lines.

2015-16 is indeed an uneventful ratings season, and I am pleased. No buzzworthy press over cancellations beats the perennial decline the networks have experienced the last 8 seasons following the streaming/Youtube craze. Our ratings community appears to be more engrossed in the fall of our sister site, TVBN, which no longer features its prided "must see" articles such as the weekly ratings, cunning and insightful "Renew or Cancel" articles every Tuesday, and a decline in journalism as a whole. So sit back and enjoy a boring season. We earned it and should flaunt our shows slowing their ratings erosion.

FOX Renew/Cancel Watch: Gotham Is Certain to be Renewed

Hey guys, I'm Alan, and this is the first official FOX Renew/Cancel predictions of the season. They will be posted weekly on Wednesday mornings, usually after the prelims come out. Below are my predictions and explanations for FOX scripted shows that have premiered so far.

FOX Scripted Average So Far: 1.84

FOX Scripted Average So Far Excluding Empire: 1.49

FOX Scripted Average This Week (From Last Wednesday To This Tuesday) Without Empire: 1.50

Certain Renewal

• Empire (6.7)
• Family Guy (1.5)
• The Simpsons (1.5) (Renewed)
• Gotham (1.6)

Likely Renewal

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine (1.5)
• The Last Man on Earth (1.4)
• Scream Queens (1.6)
• Grandfathered (1.5)

Bubble

• Bob's Burgers (1.2)
• The Grinder (1.5)

Likely Cancellation

• Rosewood (2.4)

Certain Cancellation

• Minority Report (1.0)

Premiere week was a mixed bag for FOX. All of its shows except Empire were down y2y, and a lot of them had very ugly percentage drops. The good new is OMG Empire and the surprisingly high debut of Rosewood. The bar of renewal is also set much lower if all FOX shows drop.

Minority Report was DOA with a 1.1, and the 0.9 this week did not help. FOX can't be happy with this kind of performance, and it's doing worse than what Sleepy Hollow probably would have done in the first two weeks at least. It will probably be replaced by some other genre show like Lucifer or Lookinglass. Gotham's 1.6 premiere was underwhelming, but it had a good hold in week 2. It should be fine by being the #3 (likely #2 in the future) FOX show.

Scream Queen's debut numbers was surprisingly disappointing for all the promotion and hype it got. But, its A18-49 ratings are above average (for now), and its A18-34 is very high which could keep it profitable as FOX knows how to sell A18-34 and W18-34 to advertisers. 

The Sunday block was way down y2y, but that was on a football night with the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover. That was bound to happen especially because of the big spring drops, but football is coming next week to boost the numbers a little. I upgraded Bob's Burgers from my preseason predictions because it's probably the stablest FOX show and a good utility player. 

The Tuesday comedies premiered on par with the Sunday block, but we'll have to see how they hold up in the long run because they are likely to drop more as new shows.

And Rosewood premiered way above average and expectations. But, I'm not quite convinced that it is the real deal. Audience reception has been terrible from my POV, and it's a likely candidate for a large premiere drop. Empire may have got it good sampling, but I don't think it will be able to prop it up enough for a renewal.