When I look at Thursday nights on NBC I think the one thing they need more than anything else is for 30 Rock to be able to stand on its own and really by all rights it should now be doing that. If 30 Rock can hold its demo without The Office lead-in then NBC has a lot more options open to them on Thursday’s the problem is I think when it comes down to Community vs. 30 Rock for The Office lead-in the multi-award winning 30 Rock is going to win every time and then Community may very well have problems. I should however say that I’m a fan of both shows.

Personally I’d like to see 30 Rock anchor the night and I think kicking off the night with ‘the multi-award winning’ 30 Rock is a strong advertising position if nothing else. There’s also the hope that away from Grey’s and CSI there’s more chance that 30 Rock will retain its demo from last year. I think 30 Rock/Community/The Office/Parks is a line-up with more flow to it than what NBC currently has and what NBC currently has planned.

I really think The Office at 8PM could be a way for NBC to try and rebuild their “Must See TV” idea and hopefully pick up the ratings for the other shows that follow it. They need to start the night off strong and Parks and Rec is NOT the way for them to go.

I forgot about that 30 minute sitcom (I imagine most have by now – it looked really bad). Community looks like something NBC will keep full-season and I think NBC will at least try and make Parks and Rec work for them.

At this stage I think its more likely that they’ll use 30 Rock as the Thursday anchor over The Office and I’d be interested to see what 30 Rock could do without The Office lead-in. Where they then slot Community and Parks is another matter, personally I’d slot Community in at 8:30 and hope that The Office lead-in stops Parks numbers being a complete disaster however if Community bounces back from this weeks Greys and CSI affected numbers someone at NBC has to be wondering whether it should stay behind The Office, right?

On another note don’t forget that NBC does have a multi-cam sitcom sitting in the wings for mid season, it was supposed to follow a 90-minute edition of Biggest Loser on Tuesdays but given how badly Parks is now doing it seems likely that they might slot it into the Thursday line-up and keep the 2-hour Biggest Loser block instead, which seems like a good idea to me.