The first week of the new TV season taught us two important things. One: Network TV is back, after a few desultory seasons, with several shows bowing to impressive numbers. Two: Men are ruling the new season, with female-centric shows seemingly facing an uphill battle for viewers’ attention.
Case in point: “Kevin Can Wait,” a CBS sitcom with traditional roots, stars Kevin James as a retired cop who faces his wife and maturing kids as if for the first time. Its ratings performance — 11 million viewers — proved the “King of Queens” star was sorely missed by television auds during his feature film years as a “Mall Cop.”
“Bull,” a courtroom procedural starring Michael Weatherly in his first post-“NCIS” role as a trial consultant allegedly based on the early career of Dr. Phil McGraw, had the best debut of the week, with 15.5 million viewers. “Designated Survivor,” a new ABC series that puts “24” star Kiefer Sutherland in the Oval Office following a catastrophe at the Capitol, attracted 10 million viewers. Even “MacGyver,” a shameless reboot of the beloved ABC action series of the 1980s, was Friday night’s best performer with 10.9 million viewers on CBS.
By contrast, the new female-skewing shows (so far) haven’t proven the same draw. Fox rookie series “Pitch,” about the first female pitcher on a Major League Baseball team, pulled in a mere 4.73 million viewers. The ABC drama “Notorious,” about an ambitious female cable TV news producer (Piper Perabo), averaged 5.43 million viewers. And the NBC comedy “The Good Place,” starring Kristen Bell, drew 5.3 million viewers in its time-slot debut. All three had the unfortunate luck of being scheduled on Thursday, where they were overshadowed by CBS’s “Thursday Night Football” telecast (17.6 million viewers), itself a major draw for male viewers.
(NBC’s sappy “This Is Us,” which features an ensemble cast, is somewhat of an outlier with its 10.1 million premiere viewers).
It’s no accident that the male-fronted “Kevin Can Wait,” “Bull” and “Designated Survivor” did as well as they did. James, Weatherly and Sutherland are proven series stars well-cast in shows that fit easily into their familiar genres. They also had the added benefit of not being scheduled opposite each other — and lead out of successful series “The Big Bang Theory,” “NCIS” and “Black-ish,” respectively.
Finding the right berth for a new series is as important as the execution of the pilot. “Pitch” received strong reviews, but you have to wonder what Fox executives were thinking when they scheduled a sports-themed drama with an unknown star against the NFL. Perhaps they’ll move to find it a more hospitable home in hopes of bringing in a larger audience.
And with two more female-fronted series set to debut on ABC — the Hayley Atwell-led “Conviction” (Oct. 3) and sitcom “American Housewife” (Oct. 11) — there’s still time for a new hit to break out.