Blindspot season 4 moved out of May sweeps; return date, season 5 status
Today, NBC revealed that they have shifted the Jaimie Alexander series out of May sweeps (which runs through May 22), which is hardly a vote of confidence for the show given some of its recent ratings struggles. Tonight, it was already off the air due to The Blacklist airing a two-part episode. For the next three Fridays following tonight, The Blacklist will continue to air at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, and will be followed most airings by Dateline.
Blindspot will return to the air on Friday, May 24, and will air both then and then on May 31, where its finale will now be a two-hour event. While it’s great in one way that its finale will air against limited competition, there’s a reason why networks love May sweeps — that’s when advertisers like to see big numbers. NBC moving the show out of that time signals that they don’t think it’s going to perform well enough to satisfy a lot of ad people, and that throws its season 5 status into huge jeopardy.
With this move in mind, we have no choice but to really shift the status of Blindspot to “unlikely to be renewed” as opposed to it strictly being on the bubble. One of the other things working against the show right now is the success of NBC elsewhere. With Manifest proving itself to be a hit, New Amsterdam and The Blacklist coming back, SVU getting a historic renewal, Good Girls getting early renewal news, and all of the One Chicago shows delivering strong ratings, they don’t have many other shows that they could cancel. Insofar as dramas go, The Enemy Within and The Village (both new shows) are really the only two other series that are in question. Blindspot could go and make way for something else (The Enemy Within feels like a natural fit alongside The Blacklist).
If there’s really one reason to have just a shred of hope, it’s that Blindspot has built a loyal audience and maybe you can argue that NBC should go ahead and deliver it either a shortened final season or at least a two-hour movie to wrap up loose ends, provided that there is some sort of major cliffhanger at the end of the season 4 finale. This network has canceled plenty of shows during the past several years, but with Timeless, they did show a willingness to give it a chance to tie together their story. We also do still give them credit for renewing Chuck for many years, even though its ratings weren’t exactly through the roof — we would be bitter at them over Community if Yahoo hadn’t picked them up for a season 6.
Ultimately, if you do want more news on what’s coming up story-wise for Blindspot, be sure to visit the link here. Meanwhile, let us know what you think about the timeslot change, including whether you believe this spells doom for the show or there’s still a shred of hope. (Photo: NBC.)