NBC’s ‘The Voice’ to lead in to ‘Believe’ premiere, ‘About a Boy’ series

NBC has released all of their remaining midseason premiere dates, and the biggest thing that we can take out of some of it is that “The Voice” is going to continue to be the massive launching pad that it has been in the past. The same goes for the Winter Olympics.

On two occasions the network is going to use the Sochi Games in order to try and launch a new comedy series. On Friday, February 21, they will do so at around 10:30 p.m. Eastern with “About a Boy,” inspired by the film. While we know there’ll be some sort of lead-in, we roll our eyes at this since Fridays are not a time when viewers have shown an interest in comedy. Plus, it’s not like these sort of landing spots really helped either “Go On” or “Animal Practice” when they had them airing during the London Olympics in 2012. You really need to see how shows do in their ordinary timeslot. In addition to “About a Boy,” “Growing Up Fisher” will get a similar premiere on Sunday, February 23 after the closing ceremonies.

For those curious, these two shows will premiere formally on Tuesday, February 25 at 9:00 p.m. after “The Voice.” Yep, that means that they will be up against comedies on both Fox and ABC that people already seem to like.

In other news, the J.J. Abrams series “Believe” is going to get a similar sort of “Voice” padding at least for its premiere on Monday, March 10. However, this is temporary, and then the time slot will go back to “The Blacklist.” “Believe” will then shift to Sunday, March 16 at 9:00, which is a horrendous time given that it will be forced to fight the likes of “The Walking Dead” and then “Game of Thrones.” It will be followed by another new show in “Crisis.”