CBS is kicking off its premiere week with new episodes of every show — but why are Matlock and Elsbeth dropping several new episodes days apart?
The network aired the season 2 premiere of Matlock on Sunday, October 12, before following it up with the season 3 premiere of Elsbeth. While both shows returned on Sunday, viewers know that Matlock and Elsbeth usually air on Thursdays, which is the plan starting October 16.
Similar to last fall, CBS has previewed certain shows outside of their usual timeslots as a way to build up anticipation for the rest of the season.
Other shows set to return this week include the NCIS franchise, The Neighborhood, Watson, FBI, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, Ghosts, Fire Country and Tracker. There is also programming that viewers can look forward to such as DMV, Sheriff Country, Boston Blue and The Road.
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Before Fire Country returned to Friday nights, creators Tony Phelan and Joan Rater broke down to Us Weekly the changes the show will be going through after Stephanie Arcila and Billy Burke‘s respective exits.
According to Phelan, there was “a real desire” to “not only shake things up” but also “to be true to” the reality of writing a show about firefighters in the line of duty. Rater, meanwhile, teased how the “huge loss” would affect everyone in season 4.
While Vince has been killed off, Gabriela could still return.
“For Gabriela, it was very difficult in the second half of the season for her to be around and see Bode. They just haven’t been able to make that connection,” Phelan explained in September about Gabriela leaving the show for now. “To give those two characters a pause — a break from that dynamic — and if and when they come back together again, they will be different people.”
Rater agreed that it was for the best, adding, “This is the season about letting our people grow up. Growing up isn’t easy and the difficult part about Bode and Gabriela is they realize they need to grow up and they can’t do it together right now.”
Meanwhile, over on Tracker, Justin Hartley, Fiona Rene and Chris Lee are the only remaining series regulars after Eric Graise and Abby McEnany exited ahead of season 3. Tracker previously saw Robin Weigert depart the show following the season 1 finale.
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Viewers started to get concerned about future cast changes, to which executive producer Elwood Reid exclusively told Us Weekly that onscreen shakeups weren’t out of the question.
“I do think it’s evolving. If I can’t evolve those characters — Randy or Reenie or Bobby — they’re not just people that just pick up the phone and go, ‘OK, here is the answer.’ That’s when the show is phoning it in,” he explained to Us in May. “The challenge is when you got to learn about them, which I thought was interesting. That’s the challenge of the show is not having it fall into a formula.”
Reid noted that they didn’t want Tracker to “fall into complacency.”
“The only rule I really have of the show is each week Colter is going to come to a new place and there’s going to be a new case. How he gets those answers and what he uses on the team, that’s all something that’s up for grabs,” Reid teased. “Meeting these [local] weird characters is something we’re going to try to do more of as the season goes on. Just Colter coming in and interacting with other characters. That’s fun to see Justin flex those muscles with really good guest cast members.”
