Next up is the Fox Broadcasting Company, and this year they come off as one of the easiest schedules to program this side of cable TV. Some declines have impacted their performance, but on the whole they've held up well. Still, the impact was felt in plenty of places, especially in the freshman shows. And we're gonna see a couple of big changes take place on the lineup this year.
Oh, and I must apologize for posting this so late. FOX didn't post the trailers for their new shows up until about the time the Upfronts started in the afternoon. I was literally waiting all day and wasn't expecting this curveball, along with some additional tasks I needed to take care of towards the end of the day.
For midseason, we have American Idol, Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, and The Cleveland Show on standby. And in regards to confirmed schedule plans, FOX intends to put the new Kevin Bacon drama The Following on Mondays and comedy The Goodwin Games, from the creators of How I Met Your Mother, on Tuesday. Cops is also slated to return midseason on its traditional night and time.
Click Here to See the Full Fall Preview
Monday
8/7c - Bones (Drama; 8th Season)
9/8c - THE MOB DOCTOR (New Drama; A major Chicago doctor needs to maintain her career despite her debts to the mafia)
On Monday nights, we have the first year FOX must press forth without veteran acclaimed drama House. In its place, a new drama with an admittedly immense premise. But really, The Mob Doctor just may have the strongest trailer I've seen so far, giving us a fast-paced look at the inherent conflict of the series and reflecting the proverbial thin ice our protagonist is on.
Tuesday
8/7c - Raising Hope (Comedy; 3rd Season)
8:30/7:30c - BEN AND KATE (New Comedy; An optimistic but awkward single father and his girl move in with his somewhat uptight older sister)
9/8c - New Girl (Comedy; 2nd Season)
9:30/8:30c - THE MINDY PROJECT (New Comedy; Mindy Kaling is a doctor attempting to bring order to her personal life)
Here's one of the biggest changes we see FOX undertaking, an all-comedy night with the biggest freshman success, New Girl as one of the anchors. What's interesting is that one of the new shows, Ben and Kate comes from the same producer as that show, and its pilot episode even has the same director, Jake Kasdan. I really thought the trailer for this new show shown a great deal of promise, as well as some genuinely funny bits. It really feels like we're getting the same amount of inspiration on this new show as the Zooey Deschanel hit. Now as for The Mindy Project, the trailer was a little funny but nothing outstanding. This show comes from the same actress who brought us Kelly Kapoor of Dunder Mifflin on The Office. I'm among friends expecting something plenty special, but the best she seems to have brought to it was funny bit roles for fellow NBC comedians Bill Hader and Ed Helms. But, I still have faith. A show like The Office seems like a natural prerequisite for starting a new comedy on one's own, and we can only hope for a funny show.
Wednesday
8/7c- The X Factor (Reality Competition; 2nd Year)
Not much to say here, except "Please, when has a sitcom launch squeezed in here ever worked?" And as I Hate My Teenage Daughter and some mishaps with American Idol have demonstrated, it is indeed a needlessly complex, messy issue.
Thursday
8/7c - The X Factor Results Show
9/8c - Glee (Drama; 4th Season)
The ratings declines really have seemed to hit hard at home for Glee, which is also starting to face plenty of creative backlash over the last season. And with this, we have the other half of FOX's major changes this year. As some of the kids of the glee club move on from high school, the show itself tries another night of the week. And the network hopes to at least see ratings improvements by putting it on with the most obvious choice of compatible show in The X Factor.
Friday
8/7c -Touch (Drama; 2nd Season)
9/8c - Fringe (Drama; 5th Season)
Touch is the only freshman drama returning from last season, and this decision comes off like ABC's decision to renew Body of Proof last year. (Not to be confused with this years renewal of it, which we'll get into during the ABC preview.) And with it, FOX will hope that leading it into the final season of Fringe on Friday nights will yield...well, something or anything good. We will have to wait and see.
Saturday
8/7c - Fox Sports Saturday
But perhaps the most interesting change of all just may be what FOX is doing on Saturday nights. Last year, we got a real bombshell of an announcement when America's Most Wanted was called off as an ongoing series and demoted to specials, yielding Lifetime's eventual pickup of it. And just last month, FOX decided to pull Cops from its Saturday night stead, one running for almost as long as the network existed. Instead, they decided to dedicate almost all of the time on this night of the week until at least November to various sports programming. At the time of the upfronts, FOX says that Cops will return midseason to its original night and time. Still, I must consider whether or not they'll actually do so. After all, times have changed, and so have these broadcast networks. FOX was the last one to consistently put fresh, new shows on every Saturday night (when people are the least inclined to watch TV), and the fact that they were so inexpensive only helped matters. And now, they can't even do a show like Cops anymore. They may say that Cops may return, but it still really just feels like the end of an era.
Sunday
7/6c - The OT/NFL Overrun
8/7c - The Simpsons (Comedy; 24th Season)
8:30/7:30c - Bob's Burgers (Comedy; 3rd Season)
9/8c - Family Guy (Comedy; 11th Season)
9:30/8:30c - American Dad! (Comedy; 8th Season)
Ah, good ol' Animation Domination. Hello, beautiful. I may feel like I'm starting to outgrow you, but you still have a place in my heart. It would also appear that your efforts over the last year of growing new animated shows away from Seth MacFarlane's garden has failed. We have Bob's Burgers, which got a big 22-episode renewal last year to keep the show going well into the next season leading out of The Simpsons, which itself saw a brush with certain death early on into the past season. And those remain the only shows on this night outside of Fuzzy Door Productions and Family Guy territory going into the new season. But Allen Gregory simply crashed and burned on takeoff, giving a genuine impression of as one internet cartoonist aptly put it, an awful show that was picked up because it was created by a famous comedian. Then there was Napoleon Dynamite, an exponentially faster-paced version of the 2004 movie which didn't impress well enough to keep going. And now, we're not trying any more Sunday cartoons for at least another year. Oh well, at least we'll still have that Adult Swim-like block on late night Saturdays to look forward to. "Animation Domination HD", I believe it's called? Is the whole "HD" part of the name even supposed to make sense? Oh well, who cares?
And now for the shows that have been cancelled -- Alcatraz, Allen Gregory, Breaking In, The Finder, House, I Hate My Teenage Daugher, Napoleon Dynamite, and Terra Nova.
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