ABC’s fall line-up is a mix of the audacious and the not-so-much. UPDATED with reactions to trailers, which are available here.     ABC needed to shake things up for next season, and to an extent it has, although even if things go well, there will be more to do.  It’s relying on its […]

  CBS continues to trickle out its new series orders, and the latest to be announced is the sitcom FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES, about friends who each envy the others, with a cast that includes James Van Der Beek, Brooklyn Decker (surprisingly funny last season on The League) and Whitney survivor Zoe Lister-Jones.  It’s written […]

  No name has more cachet at CBS than Chuck Lorre’s.  He’s given the network The Big Bang Theory, 2 1/2 Men and Mike & Molly, and hopes are high that his MOM, taking over the Monday 9:30PM timeslot this fall, can join those at the top of the ratings heap.  The network’s behind-the-scenes featurette, […]

  Only those involved will likely ever know the details, but ABC and 20th Century Fox Television worked out whatever they needed to, and the result was a pick-up of LAST MAN STANDING and orders for 2 additional 20th sitcoms: CRISTELA has a  nice backstory:  ABC had originally made a script deal with comic Cristela […]

  STALKER:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS THE FACTS:  From the grisly mind of The Following‘s Kevin Williamson, a procedural about an LAPD squad that specializes in tracking down dangerous stalkers.  Maggie Q runs the unit, and Dylan McDermott is the cocky new arrival from New York who immediately gets on her wrong side; both of […]

  In FOX’s new line-up, ALMOST HUMAN will take over the Monday 8PM slot from Bones post-baseball, then serve as lead-in to first Sleepy Hollow and then The Following.  It hails from Bad Robot, JJ Abrams’s mecca of genre TV and movies, and the Fringe connection is even stronger, because it’s written by J.H. Wyman, […]

  Our soothsaying group of former NBC head of Scheduling Mitch Metcalf, longtime head of NBC Current Programming Ted Frank and myself is continuing to set out instant, perhaps foolhardy predictions of what next fall’s primetime ratings will be.  Yesterday we covered Monday, and appropriately enough, it’s now time for a look at a Tuesday […]

  GOTHAM:  Monday 8PM on FOX THE FACTS:  The hero of this Batman prequel is the pre-Commissioner Detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), who with his partner (Donal Logue) will attempt to clean Gotham City of a mob boss (Jada Pinkett Smith) and other villains.  Along the way, he’ll interact with the young versions of not […]