CBS apparently decided to get into the renewal fever spirit and has announced that eleven of its shows will be coming back. But the renewals included that network’s non-genre entries that have been airing for several seasons or more such as Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, Scorpion, Mom, 2 Broke Girls, NCIS: [Enter City Name Here], etc.. Not mentioned in the announcement were the two freshman genre entries Supergirl and Limitless. CBS boss Leslie Moonves previously suggested that all of the network’s first year shows would be coming back, but he got the number wrong (five instead of seven) and ignored the fact that Angel from Hell had already been cancelled, so I’m not sure how much weight his claims hold. Variety believes that CBS is waiting until closer to the May Upfronts (when the networks announce their schedules for the 2016-17 season) to reveal the fate of its freshmen shows. And that could mean that the network is keeping a close eye on the current ratings, which are down for both Supergirl and Limitless. I still believe the former show has a decent chance of coming back, but no guarantees at the moment. The latter series has definitely seen its numbers drop since Fall (in part due to poor scheduling decisions by CBS), so I think it is a toss-up for that one. I consider Limitless a Call to Action show at the moment, and any noise fans can make on the social networks could help its cause. For now, it is wait and see on both shows. We should have final word of their fates by the Upfronts (you can see the timing of those at this link), and possibly before based on the fact that most of the networks want to get their announcements in early this year.
Expect even more announcements over the coming weeks and months (and the trend of late is definitely toward renewals) as we approach the May Upfronts. And keep a close eye on this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for updates and breaking announcements.
