Is ‘NCIS’ season 14, episode 7 new tonight, and why the sudden change?

Consider tonight a bit of blindside if you were planning to turn on CBS tonight to get a new episode of “NCIS“: The network opted to execute a last-second switcheroo over the past 24 hours.

So what happened? It really is as simple as this: The World Series was extended to six games, and as a result of that, the programmers didn’t want any part of that competition. On paper, we certainly get it. Would you really want to air something so essential to your brand up against one of the biggest sporting events of the year? Probably not. It’s a move that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Here’s what we don’t understand about the move: Why in the world CBS opted at first to announce a new episode airing tonight, and even went so far as to release previews and sneak peeks before deciding to pull it. Even if there was no World Series tonight, there would be at least one other enormous distraction getting in the way: The Presidential election. Sure, voting isn’t actually happening until next week, but we feel like so much attention is being paid to that right now that it’s hindering almost the entire entertainment universe around it. It’s better to wait until after the election happens in order for people to (hopefully) be able to focus in on entertainment again.

Here’s our future advice to CBS to make everything so much easier: Just don’t plan anything around the world Series in the future. There are SO many dead weeks that come around in December and January, so go ahead and save some of your new episodes for them. Sure, we know they aren’t “sweeps” periods, but this isn’t the same era for TV anymore. We don’t think that’s anywhere near as relevant.

If you do want to get some good scoop from this episode, head over here to check out a sneak peek! (Photo: CBS.)