A Post-Strikes Check-in on Network TV
The Big Five were most impacted by the strikes that rocked the industry last year, so how are they faring now that the spring TV season has kicked into full gear?
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The summer of 2023 was rocked by two industry labor strikes. On May 2nd, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike, bringing the entire entertainment industry to a halt. Then in July, led by a rightly furious Fran Drescher, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) also hit the picket lines. Both unions were fighting for a fair and equitable contract in the increasingly digital and streaming-forward entertainment industry. The WGA ended their strike in September and SAG followed suit in November.
The streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV+ weathered this temporary pause in the production schedule well. Their coffers were full of shows just waiting to premiere. Sure, the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai may have been delayed, but series like Netflix’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, FX’s The Bear, Apple TV+’s Hijack, Max’s And Just Like That, and Peacock’s Twisted Metal gave us TV to talk about all summer long and beyond.
To an industry still recovering from COVID-related work stoppages and shutdowns, the almost back-to-back blows were especially challenging to network television. Even as everything old becomes new again (streamers are introducing commercials and canceling beloved shows), the broadcast networks, which you can watch for free, were hit the hardest.
Those networks (which includes ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and The CW), for the most part, still follow a traditional television schedule of a September through May season. So when September came, they made do with things like 90-minute episodes of The Amazing Race and new twists on existing properties like The Golden Bachelor. With no scripts and no actors, the majority of new and returning shows didn’t even actually return to their sets until January. That’s made for some very delayed season premieres.
So now that the delayed season premieres are starting to trickle in, how are the broadcast networks doing with shortened seasons (most shows will only have 13 or so episodes compared to the more traditional 22)? Let’s take a look.
ABC
The alphabet network hasn’t launched any new series this season. Instead, 9-1-1, which is produced by Disney’s 20th Television, moved from FOX to ABC for its seventh season premiere. The show returned in all its bombastic glory (one rescue involved a woman who was, to put it delicately, attached to her fiancé in a hot tub) and also garnered big ratings for ABC. 9-1-1 will celebrate its 100th episode, something very few shows achieve in the current TV landscape, on April 4th.
Abbott Elementary returned for its third season with big guest stars. In the season premiere, Philadelphia Eagles players Jason Kelce, Jalen Hurts, and Brandon Graham zoomed into Melissa’s (Lisa Ann Walter) classroom, and then Bradley Cooper popped up in the post-Oscar episode in a hilarious cameo that made great use of Barbara’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) penchant for mixing up names (Cooper starred in The Hangover not The Holdovers). The show is also still creatively strong in its third season, making wise choices like temporarily moving Janine (star and creator Quinta Brunson) to the school district and establishing an unlikely friendship between Melissa and Jacob (Chris Perfetti).
Grey’s Anatomy is also back for the show’s 20th (!!) season as the series continues to bring things full circle, with Dr. Bailey (Chandra Wilson) once again in charge of the interns. Add in strong sophomore seasons for Will Trent and Not Dead Yet, solid cop drama The Rookie, and the final season of The Good Doctor, and ABC is all set to have the sweetest of springs.
CBS
Surprisingly, CBS, which, shall we say, caters to a slightly more mature demographic, had two of the most buzzed about new series. This is Us’ Justin Hartley returned to TV with the new drama Tracker, which got a cushy post-Super Bowl launch and has already been picked up for a second season. The Good Wife/Good Fight spinoff Elsbeth, which features Carrie Preston’s quirky lawyer in the title role, also got a strong launch and solid ratings when it premiered on February 29th. But for reasons that will never be understood (something, something, basketball), Elsbeth won’t return with new episodes until April 4th. A five-week hiatus after just one episode definitely has the potential to squash any momentum the show was building.
As far as returning shows go, sophomore dramedy So Help Me Todd returned with strong ratings and held its own last week when faced with the returning ABC line-up. Star Marcia Gay Harden has definitely picked up the fabulous wardrobe torch Christine Baranski put down when The Good Fight ended its run in 2022. With Ghosts now in its third season and Blue Bloods, which will end its 14-season run later this year, still going strong, CBS has bounced back nicely from the strikes.
NBC
Sure, the network’s new comedy Extended Family isn’t great, but NBC was well-poised to weather the multiple strikes that impacted the industry. Quantum Leap was already filming its second season well before the strikes began and was able to premiere last October, already having aired its second season finale. NBC also held the drama Found until the 2023/2024 season so it could premiere last October, and it has already been picked up for a second season.
The stalwart drama Law & Order has gone through some big changes. Sam Waterson’s Jack McCoy departed the series last month, and last week Tony Goldwyn came onboard as the show’s prickly new District Attorney. With two more shows in the Law & Order universe (including SVU, now in its 25th season) and three shows in the Chicago world, NBC remains the place to go for procedurals.
FOX
With the other networks, I haven’t really focused on the reality shows, but with FOX, you kind of have to because the network is definitely dragging its heels in the scripted arena. Sure, they have The Simpsons currently in its 35th season, and, yes, they debuted the Jon Hamm-voiced Grimsburg, which premiered in January; Animal Control and Alert: Missing Persons Unit are back with new seasons, but not Accused, which FOX seems to be holding for next season.
But it’s really shows like The Masked Singer that are creating any buzz. Rita Ora replaced Nicole Scherzinger as one of the panel judges and is fitting right in with the show’s exaggerated responses and hyperbolic exclamations (I call it going to the Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg School of Reactions). It’s been a long time since FOX, the network that once gave us Ally McBeal and Melrose Place, had TV shows that people talked about over the proverbial water cooler.
CW
Just when we had almost totally forgotten about the network that gave us Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, and Jane the Virgin, comes a Canadian import that seems like the CW we know and love. Can Wild Cards single handedly rescue this flailing network from obscurity? Perhaps. The drama, which name checks Castle and Bones in its premiere episode, follows con artist Max Mitchell (Vanessa Morgan) who, in a bid to reduce the criminal charges against her, is teamed up with a recently-demoted Detective Cole Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti) to solve crimes and, of course, engage in flirty, witty banter. Also Jason Priestly, the man who started the teen drama craze with Beverly Hills, 90210 co-stars as Max’s incarcerated dad. Yes, Priestly playing a dad to a twenty-something makes me feel old, but it’s also kind of awesome. The show is the frothy good time we could expect from a CW show before it went all superheroes all the time, and well before it just became a landing spot for Canadian imports and golf.
Amy Amatangelo, the TV Gal®, is a Boston-based freelance writer and a member of the Television Critics Association. She wasn’t allowed to watch much TV as a child and now her parents have to live with this as her career. You can follow her on Twitter (@AmyTVGal).
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