FULL SEASON ALERT: No Ordinary Family, Better With You

ABC joins the crowd by giving out full season orders ahead of November sweeps. They have given full seasons to sitcom Better With You and drama No Ordinary Family. This leaves just Detroit 1-8-7 (which had additional episodes ordered), The Whole Truth, Undercovers, School Pride, and Running Wilde with their fate undecided.

No Ordinary Family premiered to the best numbers of any new ABC show with 10.7 million viewers and a 3.2 in the demo in a tough timeslot. However, it has dropped every week. ABC will try the show at 9pm instead of 8pm on Tuesdays for a couple weeks in late November/early December. I enjoyed the pilot but the show hasn't kept my interest. For a great concept, it's been underwhelming. Through four episodes, it has averaged 8.7 million viewers and a 2.6 in the demo.

Better With You's full season order might come as a bit of a surprise at it has had trouble holding on to the lead-in from The Middle. However, it has been fairly consistent and through five episodes has averaged 7 million viewers and a 2.2 in the demo. It is not the trainwreck that Hank was last season but it hasn't been overly impressive. I have enjoyed the show enough to be a bridge between great sitcoms The Middle and Modern Family but it's not blowing me out of the water.

ABC announced additional episodes for Detroit 1-8-7 as mentioned and veteran drama Brothers & Sisters. With this news, just like on CBS and NBC, it's hard to imagine where all the midseason shows will go, particularly new comedies Mr. Sunshine and Happy Endings. Maybe ABC will add comedies to 10pm Wednesdays or expand a new night of comedy somewhere else and take a current Wednesday occupant (Cougar Town?) with it.