ABC has supersized the orders of some of its top ratings performers — Modern Family, The Goldbergs, Black-ish, The Middle, Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Castle, and Resurrection.
For the first time in years, ABC has a Wednesday comedy block that is clicking, with tentpoles Modern Family and The Middle getting support from transplant The Goldbergs, which is regularly building on its Middle lead-in, and newbie Black-ish, which has showed solid retention behind Modern Family. Not surprisingly, all four ABC Wednesday comedies are getting two extra episodes each. (For Black-ish, the extra two episodes come on top of the Back 9-episode pickup the new comedy received earlier this month.) In contrast, ABC’s Tuesday comedies, freshmen Selfie and Manhattan Love Story, are fighting for survival as the network has not decided on back episodic orders yet.
Also expanded to 24 is Season 11 of Thursday drama Grey’s Anatomy, which is adjusting well to its new 8 PM time slot. The medical soap has been a hard worker on the ABC schedule, regularly delivering 24 episodes a season, which is not an easy task for a primetime drama.
Three ABC dramas, veteran Castle, Sunday anchor Once Upon a Time, which has enjoyed a boost from its Frozen arc, and sophomore Resurrection, have received orders for one extra episode each. Castle and Once will produce 23 episode each, while Resurrection will deliver 14 as the supernatural drama shares a time slot with John Ridley’s 13-episode midseason series American Crime.
Absent from the list are dramas Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, Nashville and Revenge, for different reasons. ABC would've loved to get more Scandal and HTGAWM originals, but both are dense, serialized dramas. So Scandal will stick to 22, while HTGAWM is producing 15 per star Viola Davis’ contract. That show will be succeed in midseason by drama Secrets & Lies.
For Nashville and Revenge, the lack of extra episodes reflects the soapy dramas’ ratings challenges this season.
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