After the hack and slash job that the broadcast networks unleashed upon TV schedules last week, this week – complete with upfront presentations – will be the source of far more good news than bad. Case in point: CBS has finally made decisions about what to do with some of its remaining freshman series, as well as a couple of others, and renewal orders have been granted for the procedural spinoff Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, the medical drama Code Black, the comedic reiteration The Odd Couple and the unscripted mainstay Undercover Boss.
An offshoot of the extremely popular flagship series Criminal Minds, which itself got a Season 12 renewal recently, Beyond Borders has quite a ways to go to match up in terms of seasons. The Gary Sinise-starring drama will only be heading into Season 2 for the 2016-2017 fall season, which is when we’ll be able to watch the globe-trotting International Response Team solving crimes in a group of other countries. While the show’s ratings haven’t been quite as high as what CBS is used to from its popular dramas, they’re good enough, and the DVR numbers have been solid as well from week to week.
TV just wouldn’t be TV without hospital dramas all over the place, and Code Black Season 2 likely won’t be the last for the hectic series, which stars Marcia Gay Harden, Luiz Guzman, Raza Jaffey and more as the dedicated professionals aiming to keep the over-busy and under-resourced emergency room at Angels Memorial Hospital in L.A. Ratings for Code Black have been virtually unpredictable, as the show randomly bounced between 6.5 million and 8 million viewers during its 18-episode run that concluded earlier this year. So long as the upticks are there to complement the drops, CBS will probably hold onto this one for a while.
The umpteenth version of Neil Simon’s iconic stage play to get made for audiences, this newest take on The Odd Couple relies on the comic chops of stars Matthew Perry, Thomas Lennon, Yvette Nicole Brown and the rest of the star-studded cast. It might not be the edgiest and most high-brow humor on television, but The Odd Couple is making enough people laugh for CBS to feel confident bringing Season 3 to people later this year. The oddball Season 2 schedule has led to some seemingly unavoidable ratings issues, with Monday airings not getting nearly the same number of viewers as Thursday airings, but that’ll probably be figured out by the time Season 3 kicks off.
The veteran series in this bunch, Undercover Boss is being brought back for Season 8, as reported by TVLine. You know how this show goes: a successful company’s owner or upper-crust exec joins his own workforce on the sly, offering them the opportunity to see how the business works from each department’s perspective, which leads to amusing and sometimes uncomfortable results. I doubt the format will be switched up for Season 8, so if you were already a fan, then keep your couch seat warm for more on the way.
Along with these shows, CBS’ fall season will also have Michael Weatherly’s post-NCIS series Bull, the small screen remake of Training Day, the aliens-as-politicians drama BrainDead and more. You won’t see Supergirl, though, as that moved to The CW, and the network’s cancellation list included CSI: Cyber and Rush Hour.
