The Hunting Party gets an early February premiere date (Is it a good timeslot?)
NBC has announced when The Hunting Party will be on TV, but is it a bad time slot for the new crime drama?
NBC has just announced its winter/spring 2025 schedule, with a mix of new and returning shows. Among them is the new crime thriller The Hunting Party. Created by JJ Bailey, the series focuses on a pack of cops, federal agents, and investigators brought in when a jailbreak occurs at a high-security prison. The catch? The prison is so ultra top-secret that the government doesn’t even acknowledge it exists or who was held there. That means the team can’t rely on help from other agencies while also wondering who they’re really working for.
The show is set to debut Monday, Feb. 3 at 10/9c. That seems like a good entry for the new thriller, yet the question is whether this is a good place for this drama or not.
Is The Hunting Party getting a good time slot?
The show does have a compelling setup in the plotline. It also boasts a great cast led by Melissa Roxburgh, last seen starring in the NBC/Netflix series Manifest. She’s joined by Nick Wechsler (Revenge), Patrick Sabongui (The Flash), Josh McKenzie (La Brea) and Sara Garcia (Ride) as other team members.
The time slot will be a bit tricky. The show will have the benefit of The Voice as a lead-in, and likely, NBC will promote the series nicely to get more eyes on it. The big competition is with CBS’s NCIS: Origins and two crime shows competing at once means one will have fewer eyes on it. Given NCIS is one of the biggest franchises on TV, it’s likely that it will get bigger ratings no matter what is put against it.
The other main competition is on ABC with the new reality series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. That’s unlikely to be that big a deal as it will be going for a different audience anyway, leaving Origins and Party to fight it out for crime fans.
It’s true that finding the right spot in NBC’s schedule is tricky, given that there are not that many places for new shows amid so many returning favorites. Some may argue that Hunting Party would be better off following The Irrational on Tuesday nights as a good double crime block. Instead, NBC is giving the later Tuesday slot to Deal or No Deal Island. A double dose of crime dramas to counter CBS’s FBI Tuesdays seems a safer bet, yet NBC is avoiding it.
So for now, fans can be hopeful that this time slot may help The Hunting Party break out and become a sleeper crime success story for NBC.
Gabriel Macht will appear in Suits: LA. dark. Next. Gabriel Macht will appear in Suits: LA
The Hunting Party premieres Monday, Feb. 3 at 10/9c on NBC.