Fox, NBC Unveil Their New Fall Schedules

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 14, 2018 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 14, 2018 |

Despite a flurry of cancellations over on Fox last week (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Mick, The Last Man on Earth and the departing New Girl), the new fall schedule doesn’t actually look all that different from its current schedule. For the fall, anyway, there are only a couple of new additions. Football will occupy all of Thursday; Empire and Star hang on to their Wednesday slots; the Clayne Crawford-less Lethal Weapon will move to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, preceded by The Gifted, the animation block continues its run on Sundays, and Mondays will be the home for two of this spring’s midseason hits, The Resident and 9-1-1.

Fox has also decided to keep Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing on Friday nights, where it aired on ABC for five years. The decision to bring that back probably had everything to do with the success of Roseanne and the feeling that Fox could tap into some of that pro-Trump sentiment, but they clearly don’t expect that pro-Trump sentiment will generate a lot of ratings for a shitty show, so they buried it on Friday with The Cool Kids, a laugh-track sitcom about a retirement community starring Vicki Lawrence, David Alan Grier, Leslie Jordan and Martin Mull. Before you dismiss it, understand that it also comes from the team behind It’s Always Sunny (Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton), and now that you’ve acknowledged that, you can now dismiss it.

Here’s what the fall schedule looks like:

Monday
8-9 p.m. — The Resident
9-10 p.m. — 9-1-1

Tuesday
8-9 p.m. — The Gifted
9-10 p.m. — Lethal Weapon

Wednesday
8-9 p.m. — Empire
9-10 p.m. — Star

Thursday
8 p.m. —Thursday Night Football

Friday
8-8:30 p.m. — Last Man Standing
8:30-9 p.m. — The Cool Kids
9-10 p.m. — Hell’s Kitchen

Saturday
7-10:30 p.m. — Fox College Football

Sunday
7-7:30 p.m. — NFL on Fox
7:30-8 p.m. The OT
8-8:30 p.m. — The Simpsons
8:30-9 p.m. — Bob’s Burgers
9-9:30 p.m. — Family Guy
9:30-10 p.m. — Rel

Meanwhile, over on NBC, there’s not a huge shake-up over there, either, for the fall. The only shows most of us care about — Superstore, The Good Place, and Will & Grace — will keep their slots on Thursday nights, along with newcomer I Feel Bad from producer Amy Poehler that actually looks pretty good.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, AP Bio, and another Mike Schur sitcom Abby’s will kick off at mid-season.

I’m curious about New Amsteram, which gets the cush slot following This Is Us. It’s a meatball down the middle specifically designed to extract as many tears as possible from its viewers, and if it weren’t another hospital drama, I might be interested (I like the cast):

Manifest, the new drama on Mondays, hooked me within 40 seconds. It’s also a high-concept, sci-fi tear-jerker that will be interesting for about 7 episodes before it careens off the rails. I am embarrassed by how intrigued I am by such a shameless premise.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same-old-same-old:

MONDAY

8-10 P.M. — The Voice

10-11 P.M. — Manifest

TUESDAY

8-9 P.M. — The Voice

9-10 P.M. — This Is Us

10-11 P.M. — New Amsterdam

WEDNESDAY

8-9 P.M. — Chicago Med

9-10 P.M. — Chicago Fire

10-11 P.M. — Chicago P.D.

THURSDAY

8-8:30 P.M. — Superstore

8:30-9 P.M. — The Good Place

9-9:30 P.M. — Will & Grace

9:30-10 P.M. — I Feel Bad

10-11 P.M. — Law & Order: SVU

FRIDAY

8-9 P.M. - Blindspot

9-10 P.M. — Midnight, Texas

10-11 P.M — Dateline NBC

SATURDAY

8-10 P.M. — Dateline Saturday Night Mystery

10-11 P.M. - Saturday Night Live (encores)

SUNDAY

7-8:20 P.M. — Football Night in America

8:20-11 P.M. — NBC Sunday Night Football