March Madness has taken over the CBS Friday night primetime schedule
It’s the start of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, which takes over TV during its run. This year, the tournament began on March 21 and will run until the national championship game on Monday, April 8.
This year’s games will be televised on CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV, and will stream onl ine via Max (for the TNT, TBS and TruTV games), Paramount+ (for the CBS games) and the March Madness Live app.
So, tonight just happens to be CBS’ turn to broadcast several games, and those will air in place of the eye network’s Friday night schedule: S.W.A.T., Fire Country and Blue Bloods.
Tonight at 7:10 p.m. ET, CBS will air the Duke/Verm ont game, followed by Wisconsin vs. James Madison at 9:40 p.m. ET.
CBS’s regular Friday night lineup will return in two weeks on Friday, April 5, which means Friday, March 29 will also feature more basketball matchups, as yet undetermined.
When S.W.A.T. returns on April 5, it will pick up the cliffhanger storyline in which Dominique Luca (Kenny Johnson) was gunned down on the street, trying to stop a robbery. Did he survive or was that a funeral tease in the promo for the episode? In the “Last Call” episode, Hondo (Shemar Moore) and the members of 20-Squad launch a citywide manhunt for the robbery crew responsible.
Fire Country will return with an episode titled “This Storm Will Pass” in which the station 42 crew must protect Edgewater and take cover when an extremely rare and dangerous fire tornado leaves lives in peril.
As for Blue Blood, no release yet on what the Tom Selleck-starrer will feature on its return.