‘This Is Us’ Will Stay On Tuesday As NBC Reverses Big Move, Tweaks Fall Schedule

NBC’s breakout drama This Is Us is staying put. NBC has reversed its biggest scheduling move announced at the upfronts earlier this month, which was This Is Us moving from Tuesday to Thursday next fall to anchor a new Must See TV lineup.

NBC has tweaked its fall schedule, with This Is Us staying in its post-The Voice Tuesday 9 PM slot, with Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, which had been slated behind This Is Us on Thursday, taking over the Tuesday 10 PM slot. Meanwhile, the Tuesday 9-10 PM block of comedies Superstore and The Good Place and drama Chicago Fire are relocating to Thursday. The comedies will air in the 8 PM hour, with Will & Grace shifting an hour to 9 PM where it spent most of its original run, followed by Great News at 9:30 PM and Chicago Fire as a 10 PM anchor.

NBC raised a lot of eyebrows when it decided to uproot its breakout hit This Is Us to Thursday after only one season, especially with NBC’s Thursday lineup in the fall disrupted by Thursday Night Football. 

The heavily serialized This Is Us was tasked to navigate a six-week preemption for Thursday Night Football in the fall in addition to a two-week one for the Winter Olympics, a prospect that none of the show’s producers were particularly happy about. 

“While this is a bit risky, there is a bigger case to be made about redoing Thursday night” with the move of This Is Us, Greenblatt said on NBC’s upfront press call earlier this month. Noting This Is Us‘ “extraordinary rabid following,” he said, “If there is one show we could move, it would be this one.”

To help with preemptions, NBC was thinking of doing a special Christmas episode. “It’s a priority for us how can we keep This Is Us alive on schedule as long as possible even with the interruptions,” Greenblatt said earlier. That is now been accomplished by keeping This Is Us where it thrived in its first season.

This was the second time NBC had decided to move its No.1 drama to the Thursday 9 PM slot with the hope to reinvigorate the once dominant night for the network. It also did it with The Blacklist, whose ratings dropped significantly after the relocation.

The long-running Chicago Fire, which is well established and a little less procedural than This Is Us, is considered to be better equipped to handle the preemptions. This Is Us also will have a special episode airing after the Super Bowl on Feb. 4.

Here are NBC’s new fall Tuesday and Thursday lineups.

TUESDAYS
8 p.m. – The Voice
9 p.m. – This Is Us
10 p.m. – Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders

THURSDAYS
8 p.m. – Superstore
8:30 p.m. – The Good Place
9 p.m. – Will & Grace
9:30 p.m. – Great News
10 p.m. – Chicago Fire