How many of you caught the ad for JJ Abrams' Fall show
Fringe during
American Idol last night? I think it looks pretty good, so I'm excited
Fox is preparing for a potentially one-two punch when they roll out a sci-fi thriller from Joss Whedon (creator of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer) come mid-season. This means that if both Fringe and Dollhouse are as good as they look I'm going to be spending a lot of time over at Fox this year.
Fox just
revealed its Fall and mid-season schedules, including the addition of big new sci-fi dramas, the return of 24 (complete with that two-our prequel airing in November) and a new comedy. Now that I've had a chance to think about the schedule and watch some clips, here are my thoughts:
- In the Fall, Tuesday night will be pretty darn cool with the return of House followed by the new J.J. Abrams thriller Fringe.
Fox revealed its Fall TV schedule at the 2008
upfronts this morning, announcing two new shows and the two-hour "telefilm"
24 prequel that will air in November before the regular (much delayed) new season of the show starts up again in January 2009.
The Fox show getting the most buzz this upfront season (and the basket in which Fox is placing all its eggs) is the J.J. Abrams drama
Fringe (featuring Joshua Jackson — yay, Pacey!) which will follow
House (in a new spot) on Tuesday nights.
CBS revealed its
plans for Fall at the
upfronts this morning, including more comedy and a few high-profile drama series. Now that I've had the chance to mull the schedule over, here are some of my thoughts:
- CBS' decision to expand into a second night of comedy has to be good news for fans of traditional sitcoms, which CBS already did more of — and arguably does better — than any other network at this point. While the descriptions for Project Gary (pictured above) and Worst Week didn't wow me on paper, I'm curious to check out the full shows for myself.
- I wouldn't have pegged CBS as a network for remakes of shows from other countries (that tends to be more NBC's bag), but that's what three of their new series are: The Ex List is imported from Israel, Worst Week is based on a BBC comedy, and Eleventh Hour was originally a BBC miniseries starring Patrick Stewart.
- Hooray for How I Met Your Mother!
Given that
90210 hasn't even
cast its father yet, it's safe to say it'll be a while before we see clips of that show. But in the meantime, we can at least check out another one of the CW's new shows about the wealthy and powerful:
Surviving the Filthy Rich.
The show centers on Megan, a 23-year-old Ivy League graduate — played by JoAnna Garcia, who recently appeared in Reba and thus is no stranger to the CW — who gets fired from her magazine job and becomes a live-in tutor to the twin granddaughters of a cosmetics mogul.
CBS took its turn at the
2008 upfronts this morning, revealing a slate that boasted five new shows — and the cancellation of a couple of fan favorites. Chief among them:
Moonlight, the network's Friday night vampire drama, which in recent weeks had fans organizing a blood drive in its honor. I wonder if stakes and cloves of garlic will soon be arriving at CBS' door?
The CW announced its intention to bring a bunch of rich kids back to the big screen at the network's
upfront presentation yesterday, scheduling
a 90210 remake and a show about surviving the "filthy rich". Now that I've had some time to mull it over, here are some of my thoughts on the schedule:
- I'm surprised that the CW is putting 90210 and Surviving the Filthy Rich on the same night. Why not pair Gossip Girl with 90210 and One Tree Hill with Filthy Rich?
Hmmm, think the CW knows its target demographic? At its
upfront presentation today, the network introduced several new shows that seem to appeal to the same audience that tunes in for, say,
Gossip Girl.
One of those shows is the
90210 remake, now known simply as 90210 (pictured above), which will pair on Tuesday nights with another show about wealthy teens, Surviving the Filthy Rich.
I just finished watching ABC's
upfront presentation to advertisers, where the network's executives went over
the schedule that was announced this morning and showed clips of the new shows — including
Life on Mars, pictured above. The presentation gave me some insight into what ABC's thinking with its schedule, which only includes two new shows for the Fall:
- Basically, Fall 2007 was so nice, ABC wants to do it twice. "By far, we had the best Fall in decades," entertainment president Stephen McPherson said, "and then came the lovely strike."
