CBS has made big changes to the primetime schedule, resulting in some controversial decisions regarding the Thursday night lineup. The Thursday lineup included some of the network’s biggest comedy and drama hits, but two of them will be missing when CBS’ complete fall 2026 schedule starts. While that’s bad news for diehard fans of shows like Ghosts and Matlock, the changes could be great for a show that’s heading into its fourth season. The new time slot could be the saving grace for Carrie Preston’s Elsbeth.
Elsbeth was considered a drama when it first premiered in 2024. Carrie Preston was reprising the character she played on The Good Wife and The Good Fight, neither of which regularly delivered a lot of laughs on a weekly basis. She even won an Emmy for her work as Elsbeth Tascioni on The Good Wife. Elsbeth‘s comedic spin on some gruesome murders was tonally confusing for anybody who expected another drama set in that TV universe. CBS airing it directly after Matlock on Thursdays didn’t help, since there’s no confusing Kathy Bates’ show with a comedy.
The official switch to being categorized as a comedy for the awards circuit, which resulted in impressive nominations at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards, was a positive sign. CBS could go all-in on billing the show as a one-hour comedy ahead of the fall arrival of Elsbeth season 4. The most recent schedule change could be just what Elsbeth needs in light of the shrinking audience during season 3.
Elsbeth Season 3’s Ratings Decline Explained
Elsbeth season 3 got off to a strong start with notable guest stars, including Stephen Colbert as a murder victim, Amy Sedaris as the killer, and Andy Richter as the husband who got caught up in the whole mess. Unfortunately, the ratings didn’t reflect the quality of the comedy in the season from the start.
The season 3 premiere in the fall earned 8.26 million viewers across CBS and Paramount+, over the course of seven days. In contrast, the season 2 premiere the previous year was viewed by 10 million people across platforms over the course of a week. That’s a drop of more than 1.5 million people from 2024 to 2025.
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CBS hasn’t yet confirmed the viewership for the full season 3 yet at the time of writing, but Elsbeth was absent from the list of the Top 20 most-watched broadcast and streaming shows that was released in April. The lowest show on the Top 20 list for this season was 10.3 million for Ghosts, meaning that Elsbeth‘s season 3 average was below that. Carrie Preston’s show averaged 10.9 million after season 2, which was enough to slightly edge out Ghosts at the time.
Elsbeth was still doing well enough in season 3 that the renewal for season 4 didn’t come as a surprise, and CBS only cancelled Watson and DMV at the end of the 2025-2026 TV schedule. Still, looking at the drop in audience size raised the question of what needed to change moving forward, and CBS may have found just the thing.
What CBS’s Fall 2026 Schedule Change Means For Elsbeth
The lineup for CBS’ Thursday nights started out with Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage season 2 at 8 p.m., followed by Ghosts season 5 at 8:30 p.m. The schedule switched over to drama at 9 p.m. for Kathy Bates’ Matlock season 2, and then swung back to Elsbeth at 10 p.m. to finish the night.
On the one hand, being paired with Matlock, one of CBS’ biggest hits, should have been a good thing for Elsbeth. On the other hand, the 10 p.m. time slot can be the trickiest to sell on network television, and the switch from the comedy of Ghosts to the drama of Matlock and then back to comedy for Elsbeth could be jarring.
The controversial decision to move Ghosts season 6 and the third season of Matlock to 2027 means two new shows arriving on Thursday nights. Elsbeth being sandwiched between those two could work better than following Matlock season 3. This is what to expect in the last few months of 2026:
|
CBS’ Fall Thursdays |
Time Slot |
|---|---|
|
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 3 |
8 p.m. |
|
Eternally Yours Season 1 |
8:30 p.m. |
|
Elsbeth Season 4 |
9 p.m. |
|
Cupertino Season 1 |
10 p.m. |
The new lineup gives Elsbeth the comedy pairing it deserves by following the upcoming CBS series titled Eternally Yours. That’s not quite as encouraging as if season 4 was going to follow Ghosts, but the new vampiric sitcom comes from Ghosts showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman. If they can bring their comedic touch that earned Rose McIver’s series a spot on the list of the Top 20 most-watched shows, Eternally Yours could be a great comedy hit to lead into Elsbeth.
Cupertino, a new legal series, is the only drama set for CBS’s Thursday nights. The time slot actually makes sense, since Cupertino creators Robert and Michelle King also created Elsbeth, The Good Wife, and The Good Fight. The project reunites star Mike Colter with the showrunners after collaborating on Evil.
Moving two of its biggest hits back by several months seems like a risky decision for CBS when it comes to Ghosts and Matlock, but it could be great for Elsbeth to gain a larger audience when viewers realize that it’s an hour-long comedy rather than a typical drama.
Why Elsbeth Season 4 Can Be Its Best One Yet
Elsbeth season 3 had some major challenges to work through. The format had to be retooled after the departure of Carra Patterson as Kaya. That meant finding a new cop to partner with Elsbeth each week instead of continuing to develop Kaya and Elsbeth’s friendship. The show also faced the potential problem that Michael Emerson’s Judge Milton Crawford, who was by far the show’s best villain to date, was killed off after just one season. Judge Crawford’s serialized storyline in season 2 set a high bar for season 3.
And Elsbeth pulled it off. One of the best sources of laughs throughout season 3 turned out to be Elsbeth bonding with the various cops who worked under Captain Wagner, which helped establish the show as much more of a comedy than a drama. Everybody at the precinct was used to Elsbeth’s eccentricities by that point, so the tension between colleagues was mostly over. Add on the likelihood that Carra Patterson will continue to drop in and out as a guest star, and Elsbeth has one of the most solid ensembles in primetime.
The storyline of Alec Bloom running for mayor never quite reached the peaks of what Elsbeth did with Judge Crawford, but his election could pose some juicy problems in season 4. He named Cyrus Tully, Captain Wagner’s nemesis, to the role of police commissioner, and it remains to be seen if there’s any bad blood between the new mayor and Elsbeth after she broke up with him.
There’s also the question of whether or not Elsbeth will be fully over Alec by the time season 4 picks up, but it could be great for the fall to start with the leading lady free to flirt on cases again. The running jokes of firefighters swooning over Elsbeth never fails to be funny, and the new season means new chances to start her search for love all over again.
All of this combines to set the stage for what could be Elsbeth‘s greatest season yet, and hopefully, the new schedule means that more people will make Carrie Preston’s comedy a priority on Thursday nights. Elsbeth is also available streaming on Paramount+.
- Release Date
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February 29, 2024
- Directors
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Nancy Hower, Robert King, Lionel Coleman, Rob Hardy, Robin Givens, Ron Underwood, Rosemary Rodriguez, Aisha Tyler, Bille Woodruff, James Whitmore Jr., Joe Menendez, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Lily Mariye, Nick Gomez, Peter Sollett, Sam Hoffman, Tyne Rafaeli, Darren Grant, Fong-Yee Yap, Mary Lou Belli
- Writers
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Jonathan Tolins, Erica Shelton Kodish, Bryan Goluboff, Sarah Beckett, Michelle King
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Carrie Preston
Elsbeth Tascioni
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Wendell Pierce
C.W. Wagner