Congratulations, fellow TV lovers. We've made it to the end of the beginning of the 2016-2017 season.
Tonight marks the last two premieres of the new shows that began arriving on cable Sept. 6 and officially for the broadcast networks on Sept. 19.
If you've been counting, 30 hopefuls have joined the lineup trying to squeeze into your busy viewing schedule. And more will come once those freshmen start dropping out, as they always do.
As I write, there have been no series to suffer the infamous one-and-done fate that sometimes plagues new series. Maybe the networks have decided to give their choices more time to find an audience. Maybe they're just waiting for all the shows to debut and the dust to settle before handing out the early pink slips?
Remember last fall's Wicked City on ABC? Few do. The network pulled the plug after only three episodes and replaced it with reruns of Shark Tank.
By this time last year, four additional series had already gotten the ax (sort of) by having their episode orders drastically cut. They were ABC's Blood & Oil; Fox's Minority Report; and Truth Be Told and The Player from NBC.
By phasing out the shows instead of immediately pulling them from the schedule, the networks had a bit more time to decide what to put in their places. CBS's Angel From Hell, for example, was allowed five episodes before CBS announced its demise.
Judging by my email, each of those canned series was somebody's favorite and left them baffled by the networks' decision. There are always several factors going into whether a show lives or dies, but poor ratings always head the list. If not enough folks are watching, it's hard to make a case to keep a series around.
To remind you how the system works, it is now exceedingly rare for a series to get a full season order of, say, 22 episodes and be left alone. Networks hedge their bets by ordering only 13 episodes and, if a show is doing well, awarding it with the "back nine" episodes for a full season.
Some series do so well that they get a renewal for yet another season while still in the current one.
Examples of these overachievers are American Horror Story (FX); Ash vs. Evil Dead (Starz); Atlanta (FX); Better Things (FX); Blue Bloods (CBS); Bob's Burgers (Fox); Bosch (Amazon); Chance (Hulu); Channel Zero (Syfy); NCIS (CBS); Poldark (BBC); Pretty Little Liars (Freeform); Van Helsing (Syfy); You're the Worst (FXX); and Younger (TV Land).
I firmly believe that NCIS, TV's most-watched drama, will soldier on until Mark Harmon is hobbling around the show on a walker. And maybe beyond.
According to Nielsen Media Research, AMC's The Walking Dead was the top show last season among the key advertising demographic of adults 18-49. But in total viewers it was fourth, with 18.9 million.
NBC's NFL Sunday Night Football was the most watched show with 22 million. The Big Bang Theory (CBS) was No. 2 with 20.6 million, and NCIS was a notch behind at 20.5 million.
Which brings us back to the final two new hopefuls of the fall season. If your favorite hasn't shown up yet, never fear. A number of series -- old and new -- were held back as midseason offerings.
It's all CBS tonight, beginning with the Thursday night relocation of The Big Bang Theory at 7, followed by the premiere of the new sitcom, The Great Indoors, at 7:30.
I wrote about the show in Sunday's TV Week insert, but in case you've forgotten, The Great Indoors stars Joel McHale (Community) as a globe-trotting photojournalist for an outdoor magazine who's forced to adapt to changing times.
When the magazine goes online-only, he is assigned to supervise the young online team and Gen X vs. millennials hilarity ensues. The joke could get old really fast.
Season 4 of Mom arrives at 8 p.m., followed by Season 2 of Life in Pieces.
Finally, Pure Genius, a new high tech/medical drama, debuts at 9 p.m. today on CBS, but I'm not certain it was worth the wait.
Augustus Prew stars as young Silicon Valley billionaire James Bell, who creates a state-of-the-art hospital with an ultramodern approach to medicine.
Bell hires a brilliant team, including maverick surgeon Dr. Walter Wallace, played by veteran Dermot Mulroney (Young Guns, My Best Friend's Wedding, Shameless), as his chief of staff. Bell plans to take on the toughest medical mysteries at no charge.
The pilot didn't convince me to add the show to my DVR list, but there were a lot of characters to introduce. I'll give it a couple of episodes to turn me around.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 10/27/2016