| my take on Monday |
| There's no more broadcast football on Monday, and except for CBS, it's all dramas, just like every other night. This season, sitcoms are few and far between. The 9pm hour boasts four brand-new shows against the number one sitcom on TV. It's the beginning of the week for the new My Network TV and their two campy English-language telenovelas. They'll be on every night with a recap on Saturday for 13 weeks. Aside from the new drama hour, CBS has one new comedy leading off, while NBC arguably has the new show with the most buzz at 10. CBS will most likely take the night, but everything else is up in the air.
ABC begins it's first football-less Monday since 1969 with a decidedly female-skewing night. Wife Swap, another iteration of The Bachelor (this time with an actual prince while set in Rome) and J.J. Abrams' What About Brian. I really liked the five-episode first season of Brian, but it was a renewal surprise. Wife Swap has some (probable) straight-up demo competition this night and will probably finish no higher than 4th. I believe I've watched exactly one hour of The Bachelor, no wait, it was The Bachelorette because I thought Trista was cute. Does anyone care anymore? None of these relationship ever work anyway, so it's fictional reality and with four new actual dramas and two decent sitcoms across from it, ABC might very well being going to the rose ceremony for the last time. Brian ends the night and, as I said, I'm a big fan, but I don't expect much, especially in this slot. I don't believe the folks at ABC have any delusions of grandeur for Monday. Supernanny slides into the 9pm slot after The Bachelor concludes.
CBS uses the tried and true formula of four sitcoms, topped by a drama. New sitcom The Class starts the night at 8 followed by the sophomore How I Met Your Mother. Mother showed some flashes of brillance last season. I don't particularly care for beginning the night with a new show. Flip Class and Mother to create an excellent hammock for the former. Television's #1 comedy, Two and a Half Men stays in the CBS comedy flagship slot at 9 to be followed by Emmy-winner Julia-Louis Dreyfuss' The New Adventures of Old Christine. The fifth season of CSI: Miami and David Caruso's hands-on-hips rounds out the night. Can CSI: Miami hold onto the top slot of the night?
CW Monday begins looking a lot like the WB Monday has for the last 10 years. 7th Heaven received an 11th hour renewal and will begin its 11th season at 8. The new-for-the-CW Runaway pulls in at 9 against the three other new dramas. 7th will retain its audience and most will not be continuing along to Runaway.
Fox got the earliest start of anyone, launching Fox Monday on August 21. The returning Prison Break leads into the new Vanished. The latter doesn't do it for me. This season, the hot genre is serialized mystery and Vanished clearly is part of that trend. It not going to do much in the slot and it's a placeholder for January when Emmy-winner 24 returns for a sixth day. Expect 24 to climb even higher in the rating from last year again. (Standoff is slated to here move from Tuesday in January.)
My Monday looks just like every other My day of the week and that's the idea. Nighttime soaps, these so-called English-language telenovelas, Desire and Fashion House, air Monday through Friday nights with a weeky recap on Saturday. It should be a very interesting experiment to see if American audiences want to devote the time to a primetime, first-run strip.
Monday's Top 3 are CSI: Miami, Two and a Half Men, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. For January, there's a good chance 24 could unseat one of these. |
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