Upfronts Preview Pt. 3d: If I Scheduled ABC for 2014-15

Boy, these take awhile. I wish I’d had more time to devote to the last two but I’ll try to bang them out before ABC and CBS’s Upfronts presentation on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
Anywho, as you may have noticed, I’ve been previewing Upfronts over the past couple of posts. Upfronts is the annual ritual when network executives trek to New York City to pitch their upcoming television season to advertisers. It’s basically a deadline for knowing which of your favorite shows are cancelled or renewed (but really the deadline is a week or so before Upfronts, and, in some rare cases, after Upfronts) as well as what new shows to look forward to next season.

This is the third and final part of the preview (itself broken up into 5 parts focusing on each of the individual networks). The first part dealt with what shows have been cancelled/renewed on the 5 broadcast networks as well as prospects for the remaining shows, which is basically negligible at this point since the fates of all scripted regular season shows on the broadcast networks have since been revealed since that post was published.

The second part look at some of the pilots being considered for a series order, highlighting the ones I found most interesting or had the best chance for success on the network. Again, most pilots have since been passed over or picked up to series with maybe a handful left to be announced.

For this part of the Upfronts Preview, I will go network-by-network and play backseat executive, programming their television schedules as I see fit (except for Saturdays because who cares). I’ve already done the CW, FOX, and NBC.

Next up, ABC, which will be tricky since they’re headed for a 4th-place finish in the ratings. Despite having such ratings powerhouses such as Scandal and Modern Family, most of their other shows are aging and seemed to have long passed their ratings peak, while few of ABC’s new shows over the past few seasons have become a hit.

Sunday
The first 2 hours of ABC’s Sundays have been reliable enough, it’s the last 2 that need work. Revenge has been trending downwards in its ratings (and from what I’ve heard, its quality) ever since its strong first season. But thanks to lucrativeness of syndication, it is back to for a fourth season. Bench the show for mid-season, so the remaining fans will anticipate it more (and hopefully not forget about it). Meanwhile, American Crime is one of ABC’s more intriguing upcoming shows, a show with Felicity Huffman as one of its stars created by Oscar-winning writer of 12 Years a Slave John Ridley? Sounds very promising. Putting Felicity Huffman back into the timeslot where she occupied for 8 years on ABC in what is being sold as a gritty, racially-charged drama following a decent Once Upon a Time lead-in sounds like it has the potential to rejuvenate and kickstart ABC’s Sundays. So what do you do to follow it? Sundays are tough, broadcast networks have largely ceded it to cable networks. Between Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Walking Dead, amongst many others, the buzziest (and award-winningest) shows seem to be on cable. Revenge could benefit from a fresh lead-in, but let’s try and launch a new show in the very competitive 10/9c hour with Ryan Phillippe & Juliette Lewis-starring Secrets & Lies (logline: “…centers on a patriarch (Ryan Phillippe) who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a young boy when he finds the body.” It could very well suck, but if ends up to be a dark, tantalizing, maybe even addictive drama along the lines of The Killing or Broadchurch, it could be bolster ABC Sundays.

Monday
At first, I waned to say, let’s not mess with Monday too much, ABC has bigger fish to fry. And let’s stick with Dancing with the Stars for the first 2 hours. But let’s try Galavant, a musical-comedy that’s a “…fairy-tale musical centering on handsome Prince Galavant and his quest for revenge against the king who stole his one true love.” It could very end up being closer to Smash than the early seasons of Glee, but its musical element might make it a suitable schedule-mate with Dancing with the Stars. It’s a risk launching a show against NBC’s The Blacklist, which has been dominating the timeslot, but CBS has put up very little competition in the hour this season so perhaps something new and lighter could both match with DwtS and differentiate itself from competition on other networks.

Tuesday
Tuesday has been a very shaky night for ABC. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered to big numbers but quickly fell off, dragging down its following comedies (which made little sense following the comic book drama). And Tuesdays at 10/9c have been a troubling time slot for ABC for the past several seasons. This season alone saw 3 shows premiere and get cancelled while last season saw 2 veteran shows move to the time period to get cancelled shortly after. Follow Agents with a much more genre-compatible The Visitors (“The drama is a race against the clock to defeat an unseen alien enemy out to destroy the world using the Earth’s most precious resource: children” aka season 3 of Torchwood?) and then lead into Castle, which might be a risk and suffer the same fate as Body of Proof and Private Practice, especially since its ratings have dropped a smidge in its 6th season, but hopefully it’ll bring reliable-enough ratings and while it’ll be another procedural, hopefully it being a more playful, personality-driven procedural will differentiate itself from CBS’s Person of Interest and NBC’s Chicago P.D.

Wednesday
ABC has tried and mostly failed to launch shows after the reliable-if-unspectacular-in-the-ratings The Middle and powerhouse Modern Family. They had 2 perfect shows to launch after each one this season, The Goldbergs after The Middle and Trophy Wife (despite the awful name) after Modern Family and failed to capitalize on these very compatible shows.
Putting myself in their shoes, it sort of makes sense: they were banking on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. being a blockbuster hit, transferring Marvel’s big-screen prowess to the small screen, they were half-right. While it premiered to big numbers, it quickly tapered off to become a 3rd-place show, and with it, the fortunes of The Golbergs and, to a lesser extent, Trophy Wife, went down the drain. Fix that mistake this time around. Put in Goldbergs after The Middle, and instead of launching some hip/young/fresh show about 20-somethings out pAH-tying and hooking up (Mixology, Happy Endings, Don’t Trust the B in Apt 23), put another family comedy after Modern Family. Essentially, translate the TGIF family-focused comedies of the 90s, to Wednesdays. Black-ish sounds like good fit.
What to do with the last hour of Wednesday is a big question mark; Nashville has been trending ever lower in its 2nd season, so while moving it seems viable, with all the other potential moves on ABC’s schedule, having it stay put for now seems like a decent enough pick. If it collapses, maybe moving it to Monday if Galavant doesn’t succeed will match well with Dancing with the Stars.

Thursday
The other troubled timeslot for ABC is Thursday 7pm. Pretty much all scripted efforts they’ve launched going back to the 09-10 television season have been cancelled after a season (oftentimes not even a full season): Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Last Resort (WHICH THEY SHOULD’VE INVESTED MORE TIME AND EFFORT AND AND A BETTER TIMESLOT INTO), Zero Hour, My Generation, Charlie’s Angels, Missing, FlashForward, and The Deep End. Part of it is that it’s a competitive time slot (The Big Bang Theory, Thursday Night Football, American Idol/The X-Factor in seasons past) on a competitive night (Thursdays are lucrative nights as advertisers want to promote movies coming out on the Friday or weekend sales). ABC does not look like it has any self-starting new shows so they should slide back their Thursday night schedule an hour. This solves 2 problems: it fixes the ABC Thursday-at-7 death slot (unless it really is cursed and Grey’s Anatomy plunges in the ratings) and it opens up a choice spot after Scandal, currently ABC’s highest-rated drama with nothing following it save for the local news/Jimmy Kimmel (depending on where you live). This opens up a time slot for ABC to promote a new show in primetime. And what show should that be? How to Get Away with Murder. I’m very intrigued by this show, the premise sounds decent, but that double-Tony-winning, double-Oscar-nominee, legitimate-serious-movie-Actress Viola Davis is choosing this show for a starring role in a broadcast network show is interesting (she’s done a lot of prior TV work as guest stars and whatnot). And while she did not create it like she did with Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, Shonda Rhimes will have a hand in the behind-the-scenes action, executive producing it (which could mean a lot of involvement or not, but exec producing is still a step up from just producing). Hopefully the show ends up being worthy of the post-Scandal timeslot, but if it’s buzzy enough with lots of water cooler/light-up-the-tweets moments, it’ll do well anyways.

Friday
Friday has been fairly kind to ABC, Shark Tank is one of ABC’s strongest performers overall, and 20/20 is reliable enough. They won’t move Last Man Standing, but what should follow it? As FOX showed with Enlisted, it is a TERRIBLE idea to launch a new comedy on Friday. Double up on Last Man Standing.

2014-15 ABC television schedule
new shows in italics

Sunday: America’s Funniest Home Videos/Once Upon a Time/American Crime/Secrets & Lies
Monday: Dancing with the Stars/Galavant
Tuesday: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D/The Visitors/Castle
Wednesday: The Middle/The Goldbergs/Modern Family/Black-ish/Nashville
Thursday: Grey’s Anatomy/Scandal/How to Get Away with Murder
Friday: Last Man Standing/Shark Tank/20/20

Updated ABC released its schedule today and I actually managed to call some of the changes! I called the Wednesday night comedy line-up as well as the Thursday night line-up!
Sunday
7-8 p.m. — America’s Funniest Home Videos
8-9 p.m. — Once Upon a Time
9-9:30 p.m. — Resurrection
10-11 p.m. — Revenge
Monday
8-10 p.m. — Dancing With the Stars
10-11 p.m. — Castle
Tuesday
8-8:30 p.m. — Selfie
8:30-9 p.m. — Manhattan Love Story
9-10 p.m. — Agents of SHIELD
10-11 p.m. — Forever
Wednesday
8-8:30 p.m. — The Middle
8:30-9 p.m. — The Goldbergs
9-9:30 p.m. — Modern Family
9:30-10 p.m. — Black-ish
10-11 p.m. — Nashville
Thursday
8-9 p.m. — Grey’s Anatomy
9-10 p.m. — Scandal
10-11 p.m. — How to Get Away With Murder
Friday
8-8:30 p.m. — Last Man Standing
8:30-9 p.m. — Cristela
9-10 p.m. — Shark Tank
10-11 p.m. — 20/20

-Totally forgot about comedies, I didn’t schedule any new comedies outside of Wednesday
-They scheduled a new comedy for Friday after Last Man Standing. Will it make it a full season? Conceivable. More than that? I don’t see it.
-They scheduled a new meh-sounding show at 9 in its unlucky Tuesday night time slot, is it too soon to start taking bets on when it gets cancelled? Still, it gets an Agents of SHIELD lead-in, then again, it only got an Agents of SHIELD lead-in.
-Called the Thursday night shift, yeaahh
-Was assuming Resurrection was a spring show, didn’t think of scheduling it in the fall
-Revenge’s ratings will be miserable
-Finally, I think ABC has its strongest overall Wednesday night comedy line-up in some time. I’ve been so pissed at how much ABC’s been screwing shows more deserving of a post-Modern Family time slot then the shows they’ve been putting there.