Despite Code Black’s season low rating of 1.1 this past week, there is good news for the show. Marcia Gay Harden and Raza Jaffrey have both been nominated for a People’s Choice award for their roles in Code Black. Harden is in the category “Favorite Actress in a New TV Series” along with Emma Roberts (Scream Queens), Jamie Lee Curtis (Scream Queens), Lea Michele (Scream Queens), and Priyanka Chopra (Quantico). The show itself is also up for a nomination in the Favorite New TV Drama Category.

The cast is very excited about this nomination, and have been all over twitter and social media promoting it and asking their fans to vote for them. In addition, the Twitter feed for Code Black has been very active recently, and every actor and actress who is on the show seems to be live tweeting during each episode and promoting them throughout each week.

 On tonight’s episode, Michael Trucco and Shiri Appleby are set to guest star. Hopefully with the exciting nominations this week, Code Black will see a rise in numbers for the new episode.

After a surprising rise in ratings the week of October 22nd, The Player has once again dropped down to 0.7 rating among adults ages 18-49. The Player still has 3 more episodes in its season, but I’m afraid it’s not looking like the ratings are going to get much better than the recent ones we have seen. There is absolutely a downward trend. Looking at this past week in particular, CBS’s Thursday Night Football went up to a 6.0 in the ratings which is absurd in comparison to the other shows on Thursday nights. The next highest rating is a 2.3 for ABC’s Scandal. The football programming is taking the majority of the masculine target audience that The Player attempts to sway with its high intensity action.

Although NBC had tough competition such as Thursday Night Football and ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder, the network does not seem to be cutting the show any slack. They have already committed other programming to the show’s timeslot. The new show starring Jennifer Lopez, Shades of Blue, will be premiering on Thursdays at 10pm at the start of 2016.

Now that Thursday Night Football has concluded, Life in Pieces will move to its new and regular timeslot this Thursday night at 8:30PM. Up until this point, Life in Pieces has been airing on Monday nights, which will now be taken over by Supergirl.

So far, Life in Pieces has been doing exceptionally well in total viewership and just OK in the key 18-49 demographic. While Life in Pieces’ 18-49 ratings are not fantastic, they have, for the most part, been enough to beat their competition.

Reviews for the first few episodes have been similarly mediocre. The show currently holds a 63% critic approval rating and a 51% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The reviews, much like the approval ratings, are split down the middle. While one review reads “This is one of the few broadcast-network sitcoms this season I can imagine checking in on regularly,” another review says, “The thing is, despite the structure, Life in Pieces doesn’t cover any ground that, say, Modern Family already covered better.”

Life in Pieces has already been picked up for a full first season though it is yet to be seen whether it will have longevity of comparable family sitcom, Modern Family. While the numbers for the two shows stack up pretty evenly, Life in Pieces has far more lukewarm reviews, which could prove to be its downfall.

Exciting news for both CBS and Code Black fans alike- the network has just ordered 6 additional scripts for the series, which means they have faith in the success of the show and will hopefully lead to a full season.  CBS has wanted a medical show for a long time, so despite Code Black’s mediocre but steady ratings, they want this show to stay alive.

In addition to the recent renewal news, Code Black has hired some exciting upcoming guest stars. Alton Fitzgerald White, who starred in the musical The Lion King, it set to appear in the November 25th episode and will play a patient who is part of a touring musical who arrives at the ER with a throat infection.

Also guest starring in the near future, is Jillian Murray who will have a recurring role. Murray has recently appeared in Cabin Fever: Patient Zero. On Code Black she will play Dr.Heather Pinskey who is described as “a sexy and smart cardiology resident and love interest to Mario” ( who is played by Benjamin Hollingsworth). In addition, actress Shiri Appleby, who plays Rachel Goldberg on Lifetimes UnReal, will have a multi episode character arc on Code Black.  She is set to play Dr. Carla Niven who will arrive at the hospital as a pregnant patient of her ex-girlfriend, Dr. Mayala Pineda (played by Melanie Chandra).             

After a couple weeks of tracking ratings and making predictions, I finally have some concrete insight into The Player‘s future. Variety recently released some bad news for The Player. It seems that NBC has trimmed the episode order to 9 because of its low ratings. A typical season will lean toward 12 episodes, so this is a quarter of the season cut. It is not a decision you make lightly. This won’t come to a surprise to many of the critics who give The Player primarily poor reviews. Most complained that the concept was too absurd, or that there were too many complex rules to explain to an audience who wasn’t hooked enough to pay close attention.

What might come as surprise is that this decision was made after the first increase in the ratings The Player has had since its premiere. This past Thursday’s ratings in the adults aged 18-49 was a 0.9. This is over a tenth of a point up from last week’s ratings.