CBS announced today that freshman spy fi series MacGyver will be returning for a second season (along with fifteen other shows on that network). The announcement does not come as a huge surprise because the show has regularly placed in the Top 25 for the week based on total viewers (a metric that older-skewing CBS pays more attention to), but its ratings based on the 18-49 demographic have been up and down all season. Of course, CBS has subjected it to its usual scheduling hijinks that involve plenty of preemptions and repeats throughout the season. Whether this reboot of the 80’s show that starred Richard Dean Anderson really counts as sci fi depends on how loosely you define that term, but the original did tend the embrace the genre a bit more (even having MacGyver travel through time a few times). And the new show does seem to have some appeal to the sci fi audience.
MacGvyer is the only show on the CBS schedule that even comes close to counting as a genre entry, so there is no need to worry about any cancellations from that network for the rest of the current season. But there are still plenty of shows awaiting word on their fate as we head into the Upfronts in May when the broadcast nets announce their schedules for the 2017-18 season. You can get a rundown of which shows need support from fans as we head toward those Upfronts at this link.
