New and returning shows are arriving in primetime during this year's long-awaited CBS premiere week, and Kathy Bates' Matlock will take over its normal Thursday night time slot ahead of Elsbeth Season 2 moving forward. The Academy Award winner's show will in fact air in the time slot previously occupied by So Help Me Todd earlier in the 2024 TV schedule. Ahead of the premieres, one CBS star opened up about why Matlock was the perfect show to take So Help Me Todd's place ahead of Elsbeth.
When I spoke with Carrie Preston about Nathan Lane appearing in Elsbeth's Season 2 premiere, I also took the chance to ask the actress for her thoughts on Matlock as the new lead-in to her show on Thursday nights. Preston had a ringing endorsement for the change on CBS, saying:
I think it's perfect. I saw the pilot. I thought it was fantastic. Kathy Bates is wonderful. It's a legal show, so those people who loved The Good Wife and Good Fight and the legal world, they'll get their legal on before they get their police procedural on. Also, to have these two female characters as the anchors of those two shows back to back, I think the audience that found us last season are going to be happy to have that to watch before they find us again.
Elsbeth certainly does have its roots in a legal drama for Matlock to appeal to many of its fans, as Carrie Preston debuted her character of Elsbeth Tascioni on The Good Wife (for which she won an Emmy in 2013) and then carried the character over to The Good Fight spinoff. That's not to say that Matlock is at all a carbon copy of either of those shows; the series premiere alone proved that Kathy Bates' Matty has a lot of tricks up her sleeve that are hard to spot at first.
Of course, So Help Me Todd was a legal dramedy before it was cancelled back in the spring, and the show might not have been cancelled if CBS had a time slot to spare. The creator went ahead and revealed what would have happened next for the characters if not for the cancellation, suggesting that no further efforts are in store to shop it around. The era of So Help Me Todd on CBS Thursdays is over, with Matlock already a big early hit after the success of its pilot.
Now that the network has paired Matlock with Elsbeth... well, I for one wouldn't be mad if Carrie Preston crossed over to Matlock and/or Kathy Bates turned up on Elsbeth. Sure, that would mean joining Matlock to an existing TV universe that already includes a number of other shows, but CBS knows how to handle a crossover at this point. Just look at the FBIs on Tuesday nights!
If you missed the Matlock series premiere or just wanted to revisit some of Elsbeth, you can find both shows streaming with a Paramount+ subscription. You can also check out the promo below for what's on the way in Season 2:
Matlock's time slot premiere will be on Thursday, October 17 at 9 p.m. ET before Elsbeth's Season 2 premiere at 10 p.m. ET, all on CBS. The network also has another new addition to the Thursday night lineup this fall, with Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage taking over the slot previously held by Young Sheldon at 8 p.m. ET before its finale earlier this year. Ghosts Season 4 will be back at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Carrie Preston is on board with Elsbeth and Matlock airing back-to-back; it's now a question of whether fans will tune in weekly. As well as new episodes airing on CBS, you can find them released weekly on Paramount+. If all of this has made you nostalgic for So Help Me Todd, you can also find Skylar Astin and Marcia Gay Harden's show on the streamer.
