After taking a short winter break, NBC brought Brilliant Minds back for one week only. We got a two-hour season finale event at the start of January.
If you worried about this meaning something bad for the series, you were not alone. Opting for a two-hour event can be because the show has a two-hour finale, but that wasn’t the case here. The two episodes were completely different, focused on different emergencies and personal storylines.
Another reason for two episodes back-to-back is to get through what’s left as soon as possible. That’s what it felt like was happening with the medical drama, which hasn’t performed as well linearly as the network and the series would have hoped. However, NBC has said the decision was for another reason.
Why the Brilliant Minds season 1 finale was a two-hour event
One of the reasons for the “event” of a finale was to make it seem like more of an “event.” I think this would have worked better if the penultimate episode was paired with the previous one, but having the break where it was did mean we needed to tune in right away to find out what happened to Ericka.
The biggest reason for the decision was because of football, according to TVLine. The following week had a huge Wild Card game in the NFL. NBC knew that putting a show on up against that would be a big mistake, and it didn’t want to do that to a new series like Brilliant Minds.
So, will Brilliant Minds season 2 happen?
While this is all well and good, what about the future of the medical drama? The series aired its season finale in January, and we still haven’t had any word on its future. That’s not unusual as some networks don’t make decisions until March and April, but NBC has already made some renewal decisions. We know that the medical comedy series St. Denis Medical has already landed a second season.
Brilliant Minds is definitely on the bubble. NBC will want to see how well shows perform as they come back. There are some new shows making their return and premiere in February, including Suits LA and Grosse Pointe Garden Society. We may need to wait until the end of April or start of May to find out what NBC will do.
Brilliant Minds is available to stream on Peacock.
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