The CBS midseason schedule features the return of Criminal Minds and a time change for one of the NCIS series. Here’s how it affects your favorite shows.
Three TV crime dramas have premiere dates, and two more are undergoing time slot changes, as part of the new CBS midseason schedule.
Criminal Minds‘ final season begins with a two-hour event on Wednesday, Jan. 8 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and ends with another two-hour episode on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at the same time.
Season 15 displaces the military drama SEAL Team, which won’t return to the CBS schedule until Feb. 26. But the network clearly wants to give one of its longest-running shows, and a massively popular TV crime drama, a big sendoff.
The FBI spinoff FBI: Most Wanted premieres on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, with the original series as its lead-in. That’s similar to how CBS rolled out NCIS: Los Angeles originally, by putting it together with NCIS.
More from TV Crime Dramas
- Fans get exciting news about Reacher Season 3 on Prime Video
- Found Season 1, Episode 11 release details and spoilers
- School Spirits Season 2 release updates and everything we know
- Accused Season 2 release date, cast, and everything we know
- Wild Cards: What is the new CW crime caper dramedy about?
And Tommy, the new series from Bull creator Paul Attanasio and starring Edie Falco, premieres Thursday, Feb. 6 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Falco (Nurse Jackie) plays Abigail “Tommy” Thomas, a native New Yorker and former NYPD cop who becomes Chief of Police in Los Angeles, and uses her own methods to revamp the LAPD.
Adelaide Clemens (Rectify) and Thomas Sadoski (The Newsroom) also star in the new drama, which will arrive after EVIL completes its first season. (The Mike Colter-led thriller has already been renewed for Season 2.)
More: NBC midseason schedule includes Lincoln series premiere date
With these new additions on the CBS midseason schedule, other TV crime dramas are having to make schedule changes as a result. NCIS: New Orleans will move out of its Tuesday slot, where it has been the lowest-rated CBS series, and go to Sundays at 10 p.m. starting Feb. 16.
There it will form a two-hour franchise block with NCIS: Los Angeles and go head-to-head with ABC’s The Rookie.
The network’s popular Friday lineup of crime dramas will also change. MacGyver will return on Feb. 7 and move into the 8 p.m. time slot currently occupied by Hawaii Five-0, which then moves back an hour to 9 p.m.
That means no more Magnum, P.I. until MacGyver season 4 finishes—probably summer 2020.
What do you think of the CBS midseason schedule and how it affects the CBS crime dramas? Let us know in the comments.