FALL PREVIEW 2017: Friday

Here is my Fall Preview for Fridays: a night with major changes on ABC but little or no changes on the rest of the networks.

ABC
8:00 Once Upon a Time (7th season)
9:00 MARVEL'S THE INHUMANS
10:00 20/20 (41st season)

ABC has abandoned its Friday night comedies and will go with a genre night instead, which I don't think is a good idea since the comedies and Shark Tank were reliable here. Now they are going with Once Upon a Time, which is undergoing a reboot and has languished on Sundays in recent years after once being a big hit. It is followed by the only new show on Friday night, Marvel's The Inhumans, which has gotten panned in reviews and clearly isn't a high priority for ABC given this timeslot. I think this lineup is destined to fail and ABC may regret cancelling the comedies. 10pm remains Friday night newsmagazine staple 20/20, heading into its 41st season.

CBS
8:00 MacGyver (2nd season)
9:00 Hawaii Five-0 (8th season)
10:00 Blue Bloods (8th season)

CBS is keeping its same lineup from last year after MacGyver fit in surprisingly well here last year. This is a stable but old skewing Friday night for CBS and I think they will take that. Hawaii Five-0 and Blue Bloods are both heading into their 8th season so they're getting up there in years and Hawaii went through major cast changes with the departures of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park over the summer.

NBC
8:00 Blindspot (3rd season)
9:00 Dateline NBC (27th season)

NBC is at least making a little bit more effort on Fridays than they did last fall but still less than I think they should. At 8pm is Blindspot, moving over from Wednesday. It won't premiere until late October though. 9pm was supposed to be Taken, but it got held for midseason so they will instead go with two hours of Dateline on the night. I still don't quite understand why NBC doesn't at least go with two dramas on Friday nights with their limited space available when they have football and The Voice.

FOX
8:00 Hell's Kitchen (17th edition)
9:00 The Exorcist (2nd season)

Fridays on FOX are the exact same as they were in Fall 2016. At 8pm is Hell's Kitchen, which is always a solid Friday option for FOX and can still garner decent ratings even for its 17th edition. At 9pm is season two of The Exorcist, which was a surprise renewal after low ratings last year on Fridays in the fall. I think FOX didn't need to renew this show when they could have kept Rosewood on a syndication track and probably gotten about the same ratings in this slot. But perhaps there are other ways The Exorcist is making money for them.

CW
8:00 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (3rd season)
9:00 Jane the Virgin (4th season)

The CW is going with a night of their quirky dramedies on Friday night with a pair of acclaimed but low rated shows. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend aired on this night last year but Jane the Virgin is finally getting benched to this night after three years on Monday. These will be low rated of course, but it doesn't seem like the CW keeps renewing these shows for their ratings. It will be interesting to see what CW does at midseason with this night. Will they continue the dramedy trend with the new Life Sentence or try to give that show a better slot and go with retreads like The 100 and iZombie?

New Friday Show Survival Chances
Marvel's The Inhumans (ABC) - Very Poor. I don't like this show's chances at all. With the terrible reviews and the terrible timeslot, it seems to be a recipe for failure and I think it will be completely ignored.