For years, Thursday nights on ABC have been synonymous with one of the major houses of television: Shondaland.
In her Thank God It’s Thursday (TGIT) peak, Rhimes contributed three back-to-back shows to fill out the network’s programming:
How To Get Away With Murder at 10 p.m. ET, Scandal at 9 p.m. ET, and, of course, crown jewel Grey’s Anatomy at 8 p.m. ET.
But Shonda’s epic reign has come to an end, at least for now. While Grey’s has already been renewed for a landmark 20th season,
it won’t premiere until 2024 at the earliest. In its stead and in a move indicative of basic cable’s current drive to “strike proof” their fall schedules
by stuffing everything full of as much reality programming as possible, ABC has welcomed a new TGIT overlord to town: the Bachelor franchise.
Bachelor Mondays are dead; long live Bachelor Thursdays. The network announced today that their newest spin-off The Golden Bachelor—
which follows 72-year-old widower Gerry Turner’s journey to find love among a group of 65+-year-old-women—will be airing in the usual Grey’s Anatomy slot Thursday at 8 p.m.,
starting September 28 (per Entertainment Weekly). “Dating on this show is going to be an altogether new experience,
” Turner said in a new promo video released today, in which his granddaughter also schools him on the proper way to text a potential fling (“Don’t start with ‘Dear [her name]’”). “
What I hope is that I can look at one of those women and know that I’ve found the right person.”
And if your hunger for wine and/or drama isn’t satisfied after all that, never fear!
Two more hours of The Bachelor will begin at 9 p.m.—in the form of tropical mess-fest Bachelor In Paradise. At least the local rose sellers will be well paid, if no one else.