 | Selfie (NEW!) | ||||||
| Premieres September 30 | |||||||
| Timeslot Occupants | Agents of SHIELD | ||||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 1.93 | 2.41 | 2.40 | 2.49 | ||||
Best Case: Unlike many an ABC Tuesday comedy hour in years past, there's no comedy competition. And Karen Gillan might just be one of those starlets that resonates with the younger crowd the way Zooey Deschanel did a couple years ago. Creatively, this is one of ABC's better young-skewing efforts, and so Selfie is one of the surprises of the season. 1.90, roughly matching the season one Plus of creator Emily Kapnek's previous show Suburgatory, and ABC finally has that younger comedy foothold.
Worst Case: Selfie is just another one of those hangout shows that ABC threw after Modern Family for many years. Maybe there's less opportunity cost in this slot, but without that lead-in and up against The Voice, this show will have absolutely no way of getting its younger target audience interested. The few people who recognize Karen Gillan and John Cho aren't interested in this kind of show. There is very little initial interest and it's gone after about a month. 0.80.
Likeliest: I don't see this attracting enough interest to get a full season, but ABC may not want to pull both this and Manhattan Love Story very early on, and Manhattan will likely do even worse. It gets through most to all of the 13-episode order at a 1.06 average, including some possible double-ups late in the fall, and the Tuesday comedy hour is off the sked entirely by 2015.
 | Manhattan Love Story (NEW!) | ||||||
| Premieres September 30 | |||||||
| Timeslot Occupants | Agents of SHIELD | ||||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 1.90 | 2.37 | 2.40 | 2.49 | ||||
Best Case: Though it's a modest hour on the whole, Manhattan Love Story doesn't really do any worse than Selfie. It almost fully retains Selfie in the opening months and both shows get a back nine. Both shows are on the bubble down the stretch, but Manhattan comes up just shy of a renewal while Selfie gets the nod. 1.30.
Worst Case: Selfie is DOA, and the worse-reviewed, less-promoted Manhattan Love Story actually does a fair amount worse. It averages a 0.65 and is gone after two episodes.
Likeliest: This seems like a prime candidate for first cancellation. It's getting much less promotion than Selfie and seems only tacked onto the schedule because ABC needed something semi-compatible at 8:30. Selfie would have to explode for this to have a chance at siphoning off respectable numbers. 0.87 and pulled in within a month.
 | NCIS | ||||||
| Premieres September 23 | |||||||
| y2y | Label | True | Sitch | 2013-14 Slot | |||
| 2.81 | -16% | hit | 2.87 | -2% | Tuesday 8:00 | ||
| Timeslot Occupants | NCIS | ||||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 2.38 | 2.81 | 2.81 | 2.87 | ||||
Best Case: A big part of what held NCIS back last season was a rare successful drama competitor. With Agents of SHIELD gone in favor of a much weaker comedy hour, plus some extra promotion for NCIS due to its new spin-off, NCIS returns to about its peak A18-49+ level. 2.72, down just under a tenth from last year.
Worst Case: Last year was the first time NCIS dropped more than average, and it was actually trending much worse than that late in the season, because the early episodes were inflated by Cote De Pablo's departure. We often saw episodes down 25%ish toward the end of the season. That trend resumes in the fall and never really gets any better. A very mediocre 2.11, down 25%.
Likeliest: There are some environmental reasons to be optimistic here. The competition should be easier on the whole and it had an incredible season when it last launched a spin-off five years ago. But the last few years (and especially late last season) suggest a show finally starting to come down from its peak. I see NCIS dropping a bit less than last year but still a bit more than average, with the declines lessening after the early comparisons are out of the way. -13% to a 2.45.
 | The Voice | ||||||
| Premieres September 23 | |||||||
| y2y | Label | True | Sitch | 2013-14 Slot | |||
| 3.66 | -10% | big hit | 3.37 | +8% | Tuesday 8:00 | ||
| Timeslot Occupants | The Biggest Loser | The Voice Tue Spr | |||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 2.61 | 2.59 | 1.89 | 1.80 | 3.16 | 3.59 | ||
Best Case: The Voice's ability to cast appealing people in the coach seats is simply unmatched. Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams actually represent a marked improvement on Christina and CeeLo, keeping The Voice's fall season on the improved side in Plus. It's down 6% to a 3.44.
Worst Case: This series has been trending in the wrong direction of late. Even in a good fall season, it dropped much more in the second half of the season, and then the spring season was down more than average even with what should've been very favorable scheduling. (It started earlier on the calendar and came off of Olympics promotion.) With even more competition, it'll really start to snowball this year on Monday, and that will hold back the Tuesday ratings. Down 26% to just a 2.70.
Likeliest: The momentum does not seem to be on this show's side right now, and that's not a good place to be when such a brutal Monday slate looms. The new judges may help, but probably not much. The Voice is headed for its worst year-to-year decline yet: -17% to a 3.05. Tuesday will decline as much as Monday even in an easier competitive spot because it's moving to 8/7c (it aired at 9:00 last fall).
 | Utopia (NEW!) | ||||||
| Sun Preview September 7; Tue Premiere September 9 | |||||||
| Timeslot Occupants | Dads | Brooklyn Nine-Nine | Glee | ||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 1.24 | 1.30 | 1.41 | 1.37 | 1.63 | 1.63 | 0.95 | 1.13 |
Best Case: It's a gamble, but it's refreshing enough in a stale unscripted world to pay off in a big way. The deft scheduling gets it some help from the NFL (an audience that likes to sample unscripted shows) and then a significant head start on its competitors. It's a season one The X Factor-sized smash that might even compete for first place in the 8:00 hour toward the end of The Voice's season. 2.70.
Worst Case: Utopia comes off like a lame retread of Survivor and Big Brother. The only truly distinctive part of this show is its larger scope, and that angle didn't seem to get anyone interested in NBC's Million Second Quiz last year. The prospect of a full year of this is too much. Once full competition arrives, it quickly drops to levels that would've been bad even in the summer, and it's gone by November sweeps. 0.65.
Likeliest: Nothing has really changed how I felt in May: Fox scheduled this series so that it would be of little benefit to the network if it succeeds and do minimal damage if it bombs. That does not feel like a vote of confidence. The real trick in predicting this one is that I also have to predict how long it will be on the air. I'm gonna say it gets an OK sampling this Sunday, doesn't do that badly for the first couple weeks, and then falls apart once the full fall competition arrives. A 1.05 Tuesday average including (and inflated by) the two Sunday post-NFL hours, and it ends up getting pulled in the general vicinity of December/January.
 | The Flash (NEW!) | ||||||
| Premieres October 7 | |||||||
| Timeslot Occupants | The Originals | ||||||
| Avg | Orig Avg | ||||||
| 0.67 | 0.88 | 0.88 | 0.94 | ||||
Best Case: The Flash is an even bigger name than other brands like Green Arrow that the CW has successfully launched. And the critics seem enthusiastically on board. It's the can't-miss of the season, and the ceiling is nothing short of highest rated series in CW history (at least in A18-49+). 1.28 and a resounding third place in its timeslot.
Worst Case: Apparently this show is considerably lighter than its DC Comics predecessor Arrow, and dark is what's working in TV drama these days. The Flash ultimately becomes a bit too goofy and lightweight and settles in as a lower-end CW anchor. It probably still gets renewed with its 0.60 average, depending on how front-loaded that average is, but nobody's all that happy with how it turned out.
Likeliest: I don't see a lighter tone being a problem, as that feel has helped build an entire cinematic empire for Marvel. It's actually hard to see how this doesn't succeed in a pretty big way; the only question is the extent. I say it blows past the Plus scores of Arrow (50) and The Originals (48) and comes very close to the network's biggest-ever newbie The Vampire Diaries (61). I wouldn't be too surprised if it does even better than TVD season 1, but I'm playing it a little conservative and saying it goes right at a 60 Plus. 1.02.
The Basics:
| bc | Rank | y2y | Rank | TPUT | Rank | bc/TPUT | Rank | |
| Tuesday 8:00 | 8.7 | 7 | -7% | 13 | 31.4 | 10 | 28% | 8 |
The Network to Watch: Lots of new stuff against a couple pretty tough incumbents, but the one I have the most hope for is on the CW.
The Picks: I will probably watch The Flash. I may try Utopia in these very slow next couple weeks, and I thought Selfie's pilot was better than expected, but I don't consider any the non-Flash newbies likely over the long term.
