Fridays–where TV shows go to die. That’s been the conventional network wisdom the past decade or so, except at CBS, which has done all right with shows like Blue Bloods. CBS, however, has screwed up Global’s bottom line this season by relocating two shows that do well in Canada–Hawaii Five-0 (right) and Elementary–and bouncing them to Fridays. Global is keeping them on nights where ad revenues are higher, even though that means losing out on the simulcast bump.
Yet CBS may be on to something here. We’re in an era now where scheduling means less and less, given how people PVR episodes in bunches and binge later. Why not throw new shows into Friday nights? It’s just another place to place content that can be retrieved later.
Other networks, however, continue to see Fridays as a nothing night, with Fox and CBC double-pumping earlier-in-the-week shows like Sleepy Hollow and Rick Mercer Report.
Below are three news shows tossed into the Friday file:
FRIDAYS
Masterchef Junior (8 p.m., Fox/CTV. Premieres Sept. 27).
Instead of swearing and yelling, there’s nurturing in the kitchen as Gordon Ramsay and his Masterchef colleagues Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliot train tykes to prepare gourmet meals. Now can somebody just get the kids to do the dishes?
Enlisted (9:30 p.m., Fox and City. Premieres Nov. 8).
Ten hut! Are we ready for a Gomer Pyle for the new millennium? This service comedy finds three brothers (Geoff Stutts, Parker Young and Chris Lowell) all in military training at the same Florida army base. Hilarity ensues. For anyone who still finds Beetle Bailey funny.
Dracula (10 p.m., NBC/Global. Premieres Oct. 25).
What kind of entertainment does Dracula like? Something in a jugular vein! Jonathan Rhys Meyers (above) plays a McDreamy vampire in this tale set in London after midnight. I haven’t seen it yet so I don’t know if this Dracula sucks, but since it’s buried on Fridays I figure it is no Big Fang Theory. Stick with Dracula: Dead and Loving It!
