CHAT WITH ROBERT
USA TODAY’s Robert Bianco chats with readers Mondays at 2 p.m. ET at ccchat .usatoday.com. Read edited excerpts of recent chats below, or tweet early questions to @BiancoRobert and visit him live online. QMy husband and I are on the edge of our seats with The Good Wife, we are intrigued by The Night Manager, we are happy that Big Bang Theory has returned, and we’re even liking Call the Midwife. Are the networks saving their best for these few weeks before the end of the season/end of the shows?
AI
agree on The Good Wife — and I strongly encourage you to stick with The Night Manager. It gets better with each episode. ... As for why things are picking up, May — and the last weeks of April — traditionally offer a big programming burst. For starters, they bring us the last of the big “sweeps” periods, and while the sweeps are less important to the networks now and to stations in big markets than they used to be, they still matter for advertising purposes in smaller markets. And they still matter simply because traditions die hard. May is also when those networks announce their new schedules — and clear out their old schedules. So yes, if you’re feeling as if we’re in a busy stretch, you’re right.
QWith
the uproar about the Castle casting changes, I was wondering if there was a show you enjoyed watching that made a casting change and you wound up hating the show afterward?
ANot to be picky, but Castle hasn’t actually made a casting change yet because, as of this writing, it hasn’t been renewed. As for my reaction to such changes, it varies, and usually depends on the health of the show. I stuck with NYPD Blue through every cast change and lost interest in ER when most of the original cast cycled out. The issue for me with Castle is not so much whether it can survive without Stana Katic as whether it’s worth renewing with or without her. As for a cast change I hated? The addition of Batgirl to Batman. I will never be reconciled.