There’s a time (a brief one) when seasons merge.
Baseball meets basketball and hockey; leftovers from the departed TV season overlap with the summer.
All of that is right now. Cable usually rules the summer, but even the five old-line networks are busy.
How busy? On Wednesday (May 29), four of the five networks are rerun-free. The exception is ABC, waiting patiently for its big push, the pro basketball finals. That starts Thursday (May 30) … a night when the big five have 10-plus hours of non-reruns.
There’s more. The reality leaders are back (ABC’s “Bachelorette” on Mondays, NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” on Tuesdays, Fox’s foodie Wednesdays, CBS’ “Big Brother” starting June 25), with new shows added. ABC has its game shows and CW has quirky magicians and much more.
Beyond those, here’s a look at the early-summer overlap on the broadcast networks.
Sports
It’s already summer (in TV land), but winter sports persist, giving us this combination:
— Baseball, Saturday nights on Fox.
— Hockey finals, with Boston and St. Louis. That starts Monday (May 27) on NBC, then jumps to cable on Wednesday and Saturday (June 1). It returns to NBC on June 3 and (if needed), 6, 9 and 12,
— Basketball finals on ABC, with opposites colliding: Toronto has never been in the finals; Golden State (shown here with Steph Curry and Kevin Durant), has been there the four previous years, winning three of them. This starts Thursday (May 30), continuing June 2, 5, 7 and – if needed, which ABC dearly hopes it is – 10, 13 and 16.
Belated finales
NBC let a few shows drift slightly into the summer season:
— “Abby’s,” which won’t be back next year. Its final episodes are 9 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
— “Blindspot,” which will be back at mid-season. Its two-part season-finale is 8 and 9 p.m. Friday.
Straddling the seasons
Then there are the shows that were added late in the season, with plans to sprawl into the summer.
On the reality side, “Amazing Race,” 8 p.m. Wednesdays, has three episodes left. Scripted shows are:
— “The 100,” 9 p.m. Tuesdays, CW; eight episodes, prior to May 28.
— “Jane the Virgin,” 9 p.m. Wednesdays, CW; nine episodes.
— “iZombie” and “In the Dark,” 8 and 9 p.m. Thursdays, CW; nine and five respectively.
— “Life in Pieces,” 9:30 p.m. Thursdays, CBS; seven.
Summer scripts
Against all odds, there are even some summer-only scripted dramas. They include:
— The best (so far): “The InBetween,” debuting at 10 p.m. Wednesday (May 29) on NBC. It’s a surprisingly well-crafted cop show … in which the cop confers with a young woman who has visions.
— The worst: “Elementary,” 10 p.m. Thursdays, CBS. The May 30 episode, like the season-opener, is oddly stagnant and uninvolving. It may get better.
— In the middle: “Blood & Treasure,” 10 p.m. Tuesdays, CBS. It’s an ambitious, global adventure involving the search for Cleopatra’s remains.
— Also: CW is bringing back two dramas that debuted last summer, one fairly good (“Burden of Truth,” a legal drama arriving at 8 p.m. Sunday, June 2) and one not (“The Outpost,” returning July 11). It has two more shows not yet scheduled – the British cop show “Bulletproof” and the sci-fi “Pandora.”