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Monday, October 7, 2013

First Two Weeks, Mom


WEEK ONE
The CBS Premiere Monday was filled with disappointment, and Chuck Lorre's latest entry Mom was no exception. It averaged an underwhelming 2.5 demo, down three tenths from its 2 Broke Girls lead-in (2.8). Still, it was probably only the third-most disappointing show on the CBS evening. 2BG dropped much more out of How I Met Your Mother, and the 10/9c occupant Hostages (1.8) had a much worse premiere. And the 9:30 competition is extremely fierce these days with NBC airing The Voice (5.6 at 9:30), Fox going with Sleepy Hollow (3.1 at 9:30) and ABC very much on the map with Dancing with the Stars (2.2 at 9:30). Oh, and Monday Night Football (5.6)!

WEEK TWO
CBS' Monday got even uglier as We Are Men (2.0) launched in the 8:30 half-hour. The depressed lead-in dragged 2 Broke Girls down 14% to a 2.4, and then Mom dropped a slightly-less-than-typical 12% at 9:30 to a 2.2.

PROGNOSIS
This is the toughest one yet. Disappointing as Mom has been, there are two far bigger problems on CBS Monday, and one of those likely gets even worse when week two of We Are Men airs tonight. Those other problems likely mean Mom is almost by default sticking around into the second half of the season. CBS won't want to make another three changes unless they really have to. Beyond that? Hard to tell, but I will say that I have trouble believing Mike and Molly or another midseason comedy would be doing any better than Mom in this spot. With The Voice looming as large as ever and 2 Broke Girls increasingly impotent, CBS Monday is becoming a very shaky proposition in general.

I could defer this, but I'm not really sure what I'd be looking for. I kind of expect Mom (and 2 Broke Girls) to be dragged down again this week by We Are Men, but Mom will remain only a bit behind 2BG (after all, the gap closed by a tenth in week two), and both should stabilize once CBS clears out some of the dead weight. And with HIMYM and maybe Two and a Half Men on the way out, CBS could use reliable non-flops, even if they remove a comedy hour next season. So I'll say Mom barely grinds out a season two Renew. But this is basically a coinflip, so please tell me why this is obviously wrong!

"First Two Weeks" is an ongoing experiment to see how often a new scripted show's fate can be predicted by the very earliest data. Here are the picks and lineups for every show this season.

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