• by Wayne Friedman , May 16, 2016

Coming off a strong and steady broadcast TV season, NBC will only launch three new shows this fall -- two scheduled on consecutive nights after its top rated series, “The Voice.”

NBC is returning a healthy five 2015-2016 rookie shows for another season, and will add the big NFL “Thursday Night Football” programming starting November 17.

After a number of years in the No. 1 spot among 18-49 viewers, NBC looks to lose the overall race for 18-49 viewers to CBS by a whisker for the traditional September-to-May broadcast season time period. NBC still claims No. 1 status among all big broadcast networks for 18-49 viewers for the full September-to-September year period.

For the fall, on Mondays, a new 10 p.m. drama -- “Timeless,” a time-travel adventure series -- will follow two hours of NBC’s top-rated show, “The Voice.” Then on Tuesday, the one-hour “Voice” edition will be the strong lead-in to “This Is Us,” a dramedy starring Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia, about people whose disparate life stories intertwine in unusual ways.

After a few years of airing all dramas on the Thursday, NBC is trying to gain a foothold with early-evening comedy -- a throwback to its “must-see” TV days.

A new half-hour comedy “The Good Place” runs at 8:30 p.m., following last year’s rookie comedy effort that will return, “Superstore” at 8 p.m. “The Good Place,” with Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, is about a woman in the afterlife who realizes she has not been a good person.

Later in the evening comes two returning top dramas: “Chicago Med” which moves to its new 9 p.m. Thursday time slot. “The Blacklist” now goes at 10 p.m., moving up from its 9 p.m. Thursday time period.

NBC’s healthiest drama -- “Blindspot,” returning after a strong first season -- will also change time periods, leaving its good post-”Voice” 10 p.m. Monday time slot for Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

On Sunday, after the NFL’s “Sunday Night Football” ends, NBC will start the returning reality show “Little Big Shots; new Dick Wolf-produced state attorney’s office drama “Chicago Justice”; and second-year drama “Shades of Blue,” starring Jennifer Lopez.

New mid-season shows will include “Blacklist” spinoff “The Blacklist: Redemption,” as well as dramas “Taken,” a Green Beret drama airing at 10 p.m. Mondays following the run of “Timeless”; “Midnight, Texas,” in which vampires, witches, psychics and hitmen inhabit a small town; and “Emerald City”, a re-imagining of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Mid-season comedies include “Great News,” about a young TV producer who finds out her mom accepted an internship at her workplace; “Trial & Error,” a mockumentary about a lawyer defending a professor in a small Southern town accused of murdering his wife; “Powerless,” set in a DC Comics universe about an insurance adjuster; and “Marlon,” loosely inspired by the real life of Marlon Wayans.

NBC FALL 2016-17 SCHEDULE
(New programs in UPPER CASE; new time slot italics; all times ET)

MONDAY
8-10 P.M. — “The Voice”
10-11 P.M. — “TIMELESS”

TUESDAY
8-9 P.M. — "The Voice"
9-10 P.M. — "THIS IS US"
10-11 P.M. — "Chicago Fire"

WEDNESDAY
8-9 P.M. — "Blindspot"
9-10 P.M. — "Law & Order: SVU"
10-11 P.M. — "Chicago P.D."

THURSDAY
8-8:30 P.M. — "Superstore"
8:30-9 P.M. — "THE GOOD PLACE"
9-10 P.M. — "Chicago Med"
10-11 P.M. — "The Blacklist"

FRIDAY
8-9 P.M. — "Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon"
9-10 P.M. — "Grimm"
10-11 P.M. — "Dateline NBC"

SATURDAY
8-10 P.M. — Saturday Dateline Mysteries
10-11 P.M. — "Saturday Night Live" (encores)

SUNDAY
7-8:20 P.M. — "Football Night in America"
8:20-11 P.M. — NBC’s "Sunday Night Football"