Unlike CBS and NBC, which are mostly launching their fall schedules in the official premiere week beginning Monday September 23, FOX is scattering its shows in the weeks before and after the other networks.  (CW, as has been its practice in recent years, restarts its engines at the beginning of October.)  Here’s a rundown: […]

    BLACK-ISH:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC THE FACTS:  Anthony Anderson plays the head of an African-American family that lives a prosperous life in a mostly white neighborhood, and he tries to hold onto some part of his culture even though his assimilated kids, wife and father mostly couldn’t care less.  The series creator is […]

  Perhaps the worst-kept secret in recent network history is one no longer, as NBC officially announced today that it will be fellow former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update host Seth Meyers who will take over from Jimmy Fallon at LATE NIGHT when the latter ascends to the deck of the Tonight Show.  Meyers will […]

  CBS–because it’s CBS–doesn’t release trailers for its new series, but instead provides 3-4 minute behind-the-scenes featurettes.  These are about as informative as the puff pieces you’d find as an “extra” on a Hollywood DVD, and they’re even less reliable as a predictor of series quality than a real trailer would be.  So take them […]

  NBC has perfected the art of releasing bits of information each day throughout pre-Upfront week, and today’s nuggets introduced a trio of additional new sitcoms.  It appears that at least 2 of these will be given small midseason runs of 6 episodes to see if they catch anyone’s fancy before potentially expanding. MISSION CONTROL:  […]

  MADAM SECRETARY:  Sunday 8PM on CBS THE FACTS:  Tea Leoni plays Elizabeth McCord, a college professor and former CIA analyst unexpectedly named by the President (Keith Carradine)–who used to be her boss at the CIA–as his new Secretary of State.  She battles with his Chief of Staff (Zeljko Ivanek), and her plainspoken style doesn’t […]

  We’re continuing our look through FOX’s fall trailers with SLEEPY HOLLOW, which will hold the Monday 9PM slot until The Following takes it back at midseason.  It comes from genre specialists Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, and here’s the promo: http://youtu.be/oFOEzR9zgUo Sleepy Hollow has a bit of a second-hand feel, as though tropes from […]

  The final bit of Upfronts material released by CW is a brief clip from its midseason series STAR-CROSSED, about an alien and a human in love. A group of nervous, ostracized teens (presumably the aliens) are bused into a high school, and guy alien locks eyes with girl human, and the whole world changes, […]