2009 Fall Schedules (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

Pretty slim pickings. This is about all I'm interested in:

SUNDAY
07:00 - NBC - Football Night in America
08:20 - NBC - Sunday Night Football
08:30 - FOX - The Cleveland Show
09:00 - FOX - Family Guy

MONDAY
09:30 - CBS - The Big Bang Theory

TUESDAY
Nada

WEDNESDAY
09:00 - CBS - Criminal Minds

THURSDAY
09:00 - CW - Supernatural
09:00 - FOX - Fringe

FRIDAY
Zilch

SATURDAY
Zippo

 

[ScottH]

Man, I don't know how some of you have time to watch all that TV. You must not have kids and/or wives and/or jobs. And this doesn't even include the stuff that might be watched on the cable networks.

Speaking of which, what's the deal with Friday Night Lights? That got picked up, didn't it? Will that be on T101 on Wednesday nights again? Followed by NBC some time in the winter?

 

[Jason Seaver]

It's deep on NBC's bench, I think - next summer deep. DirectTV and NBC have actually renewed it for two more 13-episode seasons, but NBC's current plans don't have a spot for it either before or after the '10 Winter Games. Of course, that's "current plans"; if Parenthood, Mercy, etc., tanks, it could easily be moved up. I'll add it to the list, although I'm not sure that sort of second-run deal (see also: Law & Order: Criminal Intent) really belongs there.

(And, yeah, no wife/kids

)

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, no wife or kids, but still have a job (knock on wood), but I will make a concerted effort to wean myself off some of the older shows that aren't doing for me anymore (Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Heroes, Numb3rs, Lie To Me, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice) plus some shows I've on the fence about (90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill) . Plus a lot of my semi-regularly viewed shows got canned or ended (ER, Prison Break, Privileged, Reaper, Without a Trace, The Unit) so that cleared away more shows for me, plus NBC chopped out 5 hours of primetime programming.

So, what's left:

* = will evaluate for a few episodes

SUNDAY
08:00 - CBS - The Amazing Race

MONDAY
08:00 - ABC - Dancing With the Stars performance
08:00 - CBS - How I Met Your Mother
08:00 - FOX - House
*08:00 - NBC - Heroes - will give a few episodes to see if it gets better.

*08:30 - CBS - Accidentally On Purpose

09:00 - CBS - Two and A Half Men
*09:00 - NBC - Trauma

09:30 - CBS - The Big Bang Theory

10:00 - ABC - Castle

TUESDAY
08:00 - CBS - NCIS
08:00 - FOX - So You Think You Can Dance Performance

09:00 - ABC - Dancing With the Stars results
*09:00 - CBS - NCIS: Los Angeles
*09:00 - CW - Melrose Place

WEDNESDAY
08:00 - CW - America's Next Top Model

09:00 - FOX - Glee
*09:00 - CW - The Beautiful Life

*09:30 - ABC - Cougar Town

THURSDAY
*08:00 - ABC - Flash Forward
08:00 - CBS - Survivor
*08:00 - CW - The Vampire Diaries
08:00 - FOX - Bones

*08:30 - NBC - Parks and Recreation

*09:00 - CBS - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - could be the season to finally bail on it.
09:00 - CW - Supernatural
09:00 - NBC - The Office

*09:30 - NBC - Community

*10:00 - CBS - The Mentalist


FRIDAY
09:00 - CW - Smallville

09:00 - FOX - Dollhouse - I'm a glutton, I know. Hope it gets better.
09:00 - NBC - Southland

SATURDAY

11:35 - NBC - Saturday Night Live

The Bench
ABC - The Bachelor (Monday 8pm; Dancing with the Stars displaced) - depends of female cast, of course.
ABC - Better Off Ted (Tuesday 9:30pm; Dancing With the Stars displaced)
ABC - Lost
ABC - Scrubs (Tuesday 9:00pm; Dancing With the Stars displaced)
ABC - V

CBS - Rules of Engagement

FOX - 24 (Monday 9pm; Lie to Me displaced)
FOX - American Idol (Tuesday & Wednesday 8pm; So You Think You Can Dance displaced)
*FOX - Human Target (Tuesday 9pm starting January; Glee on hiatus until spring)

NBC - 30 Rock (Thursday 9:30pm, Community to 8pm, displacing SNL Weekend Update)
*NBC - Celebrity Apprentice (Sunday 9pm) - maybe, depend on the lineup
NBC - Chuck (Monday 8pm, displacing Heroes)
NBC - Friday Night Lights (after DirectTV run)

 

[Walter Kittel]

Scott - A DVR helps a lot.

But yeah; wife - nope, kids - nope, job - yep.

- Walter.

 

[Rocky F]

I do have a wife and a job, just no life.

And a TivoHD with 2 tuners and a Sony HD-DVR with one. Seriously though, as I pointed out in my list, I am kind of reducing my total viewing, and we do hope to have a kid in the next year or so, so that will probably take away a bit of my viewing time as well.

Also, I really don't watch a lot of cable (even though I work for a cable company)-Monk & Psych on USA, Eureka on Scifi, Best Week Ever on VH1, my wife watches a bit of HGTV, but other than that it's mostly network in our house.

 

[Walter C]

No wife and kids, but do have a job. I don't have much of a life, except those times I go to baseball games or travel somewhere. I often have to rely on Hulu and the network web sites to keep up with shows.

I may add more of the new shows, depending on critics' reviews and reading the posts on this forum.

And I just realized I watch quite a few cable shows, and this summer will be packed, especially with USA.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Well there's alot less shows I'll be watching next year on the network.

I guess Lie to me becomes the new prison break, I hope it's ratings won't tank when Fox replaces it with 24 for most of the year. I like how the networks take the cheap way out and reruns programs on sat, guess its a ratings black hole anyhow... Lets face it folks.. the networks are dieing.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Not sure how you can say TSCC was a dister for Dollhouse when it actually outscored it in the ratings.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Terminator was not so much a disaster for Dollhouse as a general disaster; it's post-hiatus nosedive struck me as really being something special. It also became a creative mess IMO, but it was clearly not the lead-in Fox was expecting it to be.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Do you think the comedy lineup will be a better lead-in? Personally, I seriously doubt it, but I could be mistaken.

- Walter.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday8:00 PM"Heroes" [NBC] (Tape: "House" [FOX]) "Hank" [ABC] (Trial Period) Tape: "Parenthood" [NBC] (Trial Period)"Flash Forward" [ABC] (Trial Perid) 8:30 M "The Middle" [ABC] (Trial Period 9:00 PM"Two and a Half Men" [CBS] "Glee" [FOX] (Trial Period)"The Office" [NBC]"Smallville" [CW]9:30 PM "Community" [NBC] (Trial Period)10:00 PM"Castle" [ABC] 10:30 PM

I'll also watch "Better Off Ted", "Chuck", "Day One", "Sons of Tucson" and "30 Rock" once they premiere. But if the new shows don't take, I'm potentially looking at only five hours of TV a week, which is the lowest in recent memory.

 

[mattCR]

Times in CST for me.. all you night-owl east coasters, damn, I'm in bed by 10:30..

SUN:
Football/ Dexter

Mon:
7PM: Watch HOUSE, DVR: Gossip Girl, HIMYM.. sorry heroes, not enough space to keep you around.
8PM: - (Begin DVR of Lie To me, generally plan to watch DVR'd HIMYM here to team up with..
8:30: Big Bang Theory
9: Unknown.

Tuesday: NOTHING. Not a single thing on Tuesday :frowning: Catch up on whatever I didn't watch on monday or hope DirectV 101 puts FNL on here (yeah, won't happen)

Wednesday
7 = Nothing
8: Glee (impressed with pilot) will DVR Criminal Minds.. this could flip
10: Zippo. Though I might try eastwick.. which unfortunately looks like a cross between Charmed and Desperate Housewives

Thur:
7PM: Bones. DVR: Vampire Diaries / Survivor
8:Fringe (goodbye, Grey's, this season sucked and you lost the only character worth following; I will probably Hulu the first few eps if bored)
9: Mentalist

Fri:
7: Wife will demand to watch "Ghost Whisperer"
8: Dollhouse (and for those that thought Grey's tanked it, Ugly Betty's finish made you hate the lead.. what more needs to be said?) will DVR Medium
9: Numbers

Sat: Nothing

Will keep an eye out for "Day 1" and 30 rock, but mostly I'm waiting for Mad Men Season 3

 

[mattCR]

My most eagerly awaited shows aren't even on the "sked":

Eureka (SciFi)
Mad Men (A&E, August)
Dexter (August, Showtime)
Nurse Jackie (June, Showtime)
Weeds (Showtime)
Californication (Showtime)
Is there a return of entourage this summer? And I'll give True Blood S2 a try.

 

[TravisR]

HBO's Entourage site lists "July 12, 10:30 PM". I assume that's when the new season starts (especially since last season's DVD comes out on June 30) but they don't actually tell if that's what that date and time means.

 

[Malcolm R]

It's only a ratings black hole precisely because the networks do not program anything worth watching. Saturday night used to be a ratings powerhouse for NBC, anchored by major hits like "The Golden Girls" and "Empty Nest."

It's become popular recently to try and label Friday nights as another "black hole," but CBS seems to do just fine with its Friday shows including "Ghost Whisperer" and "Numbers". "The X-Files" also flourished on Friday nights for many years.

People will watch the shows, if they're worth watching, any night of the week. It's not that the audience isn't there, it's that there's nothing there to draw the audience. Blaming a particular night of the week for the lack of ratings success is just a cheap excuse used by the networks who increasingly have no idea how to develop or nurture a hit show.

 

[mattCR]

Not just X-Files. ABC had made a staple for YEARS out of it's TGIF friday comedy lineup.. stuff like:

Family Matters - Sabrina - Full House - Boy Meets World - Perfect Strangers / etc.. that whole mess of sitcoms. They did well with that.

And CBS premiered "CSI" on Friday. St. Elsewhere also ran on Friday, long with other great shows for a long time. Saturday was also a staple for a long time, and there for a while in the 90s, it became "big movie" night, where the nets would air there movie-of-the-week. Which was great as a kid. Hell, the nearest movie theater to us as a kid was 48 miles away - an hour drive. No way would our parents send us to do that. But I remember vividly watching "blockbusters" on TV and thinking "holy cow! They are going to show XYZ". DVD/Rental/Cable killed that.

I think some of the networks are realizing though that they have to think of their ratings as "part" of the equation, and the other part is whether ornot the original content sells. See: Friday Night Lights. That's a great deal for NBC, because despite being really low rated, the deal with DirectTV puts it over 100 eps at the end, which means they can syndicate the bejesus out of it. (And they will).

I think networks are looking for a whole new math as to how they figure out how to do this. And that's going to be interesting to follow.

As to "they gave up on Friday/Saturday" hell, we're down to two networks that do anything at 9PM (CST, 10EST... sorry, throwing my midwest bias in there). With only ABC/CBS staying in that game at all.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

The Love Boat and Fantasy Island did well in the 80's, but I think if the network were still programming to an 80's world, we'd be on them for that as well. Things have changed. People have many more entertainment options. The networks aren't just giving up on blocks because they're completely stupid. Sure they may do occasionally dumb things, but completely stupid I don't buy. It's easy to say "just put on a good show" for Saturday night but putting on a good show isn't the easiest of things, and it'd be no easier if those of us complaining were in charge.

Will the networks die? To this person who grew up during the "Big 3" era, it's hard to imagine. But it's also hard for me to imagine running Jay Leno daily in prime time. I also didn't imagine a TV show where people eat bugs. As usual, I won't predict. I'll just sit back and watch the show. Either way, I have plenty of wonderful TV (and movie) viewing to keep me occupied (there's always cable).

 

[Regulus]

Back in the days before Cable, if I can recall correctly, CBS Had their Theatrical Movies on Friday, NBC had them on Saturday and ABC on Sunday. Made-for-TV Movies ran on Mondays for NBC, Tuesdays for CBS and Wednesdays on ABC.

 

[ScottH]

I pretty much agree with this. I mean, is the quality of TV today really worse than it was in the 80's & 90's? I think not. Sure, we probably have more drivel with all the reality TV nonsense, but most of the shows being referenced in this thread from back in the day were crap and wouldn't even have threads on this forum if they were airing today.

I think another part of the problem is the absolutely antiquated Nielsen ratings system. For the life of me I can't figure out how anyone can think that can be even close to an accurate representation of viewership in this day and age. I know people from all demographics (18-49 in particular) and I only know of one household that isn't using a DVR or some type of delayed viewing. Now I realize that creates a problem for advertisers, but there has to be a better way.