The Muppets return to TV in a slightly more adult form this Fall
At last night's
67th Primetime Emmy Awards, some things that have never happened occurred, and some things people thought would never happen occurred. Jon Hamm
finally won for his portrayal as Don Draper in Mad Men after being denied eight previous times. Jon Stewart received an award for his final season as the host of
The Daily Show. But HBO dominated the awards with wins for both
Game of Thrones and
Veep as the best drama and comedy on television respectively, and
Olive Kitteridge winning across the limited series categories to give the network 14 statues total. And
a montage full of spoilers during the broadcast pissed off the internet.
However, the most memorable moments of the night involved emotional speeches that touched on issues of diversity and overcoming hardship. Tracy Morgan's return to the stage was an emotional event, given his recovery from a serious accident. Jeffrey Tambor thanked the transgender community after winning best actor in a comedy for his performance in Transparent. And Transparent creator Jill Solloway won a directing award, and argued acceptance of transgender within the culture is a civil rights problem in need of a "tipping point." But Viola Davis's win for best actress in a drama for ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder was historic, as she became the first African-American woman to win in the category. In accepting her award, Davis stated: "The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
As television enters its new fall season, there is a debate in some circles about whether the industry has hit "peak TV." The idea posits that there is so many choices, between networks, cable channels, and streaming, that the glut of scripted programming has become too much on both the consumer and production sides of the equation. Estimates claim there will be 400 scripted series of television this year. So the question becomes whether it's possible to have too much TV to watch, when we're talking about devoting significant hours of one's life just to "binging" shows considered good or great? And on the other side, while having so many employed and working is a positive, is there a point where the industry has a supply problem, in that they've flooded the market to the point the model is unsustainable?
For this week's piece, I look at the new shows being offered this year, and whether any of them stand out as top tier material. Overall, this upcoming crop of new series are very weak.
Continue below the fold for more.
As I mentioned in a previous diary, the process by which new TV series come to air is incredibly inefficient. Each network orders around 20 pilot episodes based on different pitches and development deals. Those single pilot episodes can cost upwards of multiple millions, depending on the premise and the star power of the actors, writers, and producers attached to the project. After focus grouping and testing, only about one-third of those pilots ever make it to broadcast. Of that third, only a few will even make it through their initial season and broadcast all of their episodes, and 65 percent will be canceled and never see a second season.
For all of the TV series below, click on the title to watch a preview/promo for the show.
New series premiering this season on various cable networks and streaming outlets:
- Jessica Jones (Netflix)—The second Netflix series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on the Alias comic book by Brian Michael Bendis, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is a former superhero working as a private detective after a severely traumatic incident. The man who caused that trauma, Zebediah Kilgrave (a.k.a. the Purple Man, played by David Tennant), comes back in to Jessica's life. Neighborhood hero Luke Cage (Mike Colter) becomes involved, and Rosario Dawson will reprise her role as Claire Temple from Netflix's Daredevil.
- The Bastard Executioner (FX)—Created by Sons of Anarchy mastermind Kurt Sutter and starring Lee Jones, Katey Sagal, Stephen Moyer, Flora Spencer-Longhurst and Sam Spruell, The Bastard Executioner follows a warrior knight (Jones) fighting for King Edward I in 14th century Wales. He vows to lay down his sword and live out the rest of his life in peace. But others have different plans, and he's forced to take up arms again. FX is hoping the series will be their Vikings and appeal to the same audience that loves the swords and violence of Game of Thrones and might even go for medieval Sons of Anarchy on horses.
- The Expanse (Syfy)—Based on The Expanse series of novels by James S. A. Corey, Syfy's adaptation takes place 200 years in the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system. However, disputes about power and treatment have divided Earth's United Nations, the government of Mars, and those on colonies in the asteroid belt and outer planets. Detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane) is given the task of finding a woman named Julie Mao. Miller is aided by a ship's officer, Jim Holden (Steven Strait), and his crew as they unravel a conspiracy that threatens peace and the survival of humanity.
- American Horror Story: Hotel (FX)—This season will not feature Jessica Lange as the lead, but Matt Bomer, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, Chloe Sevigny, and more are back for the fifth season. Plus, the addition of Lady Gaga to the cast as the owner of titular haunted hotel, The Countess. Series creator Ryan Murphy promises the season will feature “the most disturbing scene we’ve ever done,” and Lange may still pop in for a visit before the season is over.
- Ash vs. Evil Dead (Starz)—Bruce Campbell returns to his most famous role for this 10-episode series on Starz, which premieres on Halloween night. As we catch up with Ash Williams, he's still working at S-Mart, drinking himself into a stupor, lying about he lost his hand, and according to Campbell "not really the guy who should be dealing with this right now." However, he takes two young souls under his wing, Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), as he battles the Deadites one more time. Sam Raimi is back producing the show, and Lucy Lawless is also part of the series as a woman named Ruby Knoby.
Some notable returning cable and streaming series:
- The Walking Dead (AMC)—The upcoming season 6 premiere, which airs on October 11, will feature the most zombies ever onscreen in any episode. The Wolves, a major antagonist from the comic book on which the show is based, will be a major factor this season, but not exactly in the way one might think, according to executive producer Scott Gimble. The episodes of season 6 will also flash forward and backward in time.
- The Mindy Project (Hulu)—The show has found a new home at Hulu after being canceled by Fox. This season sees main couple Mindy (Mindy Kaling) and Danny (Chris Messina) dealing with parenting and wedding planning.
- Fargo (FX)—This season jumps back to the late 1970s. Same town, but different murder and mayhem, with new characters such as hairdresser Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst) and her husband, Ed (Jesse Plemons).
The new television offerings for CBS:
- Code Black—Based on the documentary of the same name by Ryan McGarry, Code Black stars Marcia Gay Harden as the ER residency director in a Los Angeles emergency room that's overcrowded, understaffed and under-equipped. Early reviews judge it to be a competent medical drama, just not a standout one though.
- Supergirl—Even though the series is produced by Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, the team behind Arrow, Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, CBS's Supergirl will NOT crossover with those shows. Melissa Benoist's Kara Zor-El is, like many young women, trying to find where she fits in the world, with her The Devil Wears Prada day job existence working for Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) contrasting with her faster than a speeding bullet adventures. And like Arrow, the series will liberally use flashbacks, showing life on Krypton before things went kablooey.
- Angel From Hell—One day Amy (Jane Lynch) approaches straight laced dermatologist Allison (Maggie Lawson) on the street and claims to be her guardian angel. However, it's a bit unclear (at least at first) as to whether Amy is truly a supernatural being or homeless and mentally ill. The problem with the series is that it reduces Lynch's character to basically a manic pixie best friend, whose only purpose is to snap the protagonist out of their sheltered existence. Yes, that could be interesting. But by episode 20, I doubt it will still have staying power.
- Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders—Criminal Minds is a show that has been on the air for a decade and I know people that love every minute of it. The latest addition to CBS' criminal procedural lineup has a new FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), headed by Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise), that helps Americans citizens in danger overseas.
- Life In Pieces—Starring Dianne Wiest, James Brolin, Thomas Sadoski, Betsy Brandt and Colin Hanks, the series will feature four different stories surrounding a single family each week told in vignettes. The theme of the show is that life is a collection of singular moments, and how we string together and remember those moments is the basis of our existence. The shortcomings of this approach is that some of the vignettes are stronger than others, and some of them feel really insignificant.
- Limitless—Based on the 2011 movie of the same starring Bradley Cooper (who guest stars in the pilot), the mysterious drug NZT is given to Brian Finch (Jake McDorman) and his intelligence and physical abilities rise to the fullest of human potential. This time around Finch is coerced into using his newfound abilities to solve weekly cases for the FBI.
- Rosewood—Think Quincy, add Miami, and instead of Jack Klugman insert Morris Chestnut and his six pack abs. Chestnut is Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr., the top private pathologist in the city, who solves crimes with a cynical female detective (Jaina Lee Ortiz). The show is not bad, but it's not great either. Mediocre is an appropriate word.
- Rush Hour—Based on the movie series starring Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, it follows a stoic, by-the-book Hong Kong police officer (Jon Foo) who is assigned to a case in Los Angeles, where he’s forced to work with a cocky African-American LAPD officer (Justin Hires) who has no interest in a partner. Even if you liked the movies, the TV show is cringeworthy at times.
Tidbits about returning series for CBS:
- The Good Wife—After the controversy over the relationship between star Julianna Margulies and costar Archie Panjabi, and Panjabi's exit from the show, the series is going in a new direction, with Alicia and Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox) forming an unlikely pair. Margo Martindale, Peter Gallagher and Jeffrey Dean Morgan also join the cast this season.
The new television offerings for NBC:
- Heroes Reborn—Save the cheerleader. Save the world. During the first season of NBC's Heroes, the series was one of the most popular and talked about shows on television. It all sorta fell apart toward the end of season 1, and the show never recovered its mojo. In fact, the show got so bad toward the end of its run that many people's reaction to the news NBC was bringing Heroes back for a limited run was to ask why? The 13 episodes of Heroes Reborn finds two vigilantes (Zachary Levi and Judith Shekoni) hunting down "evolved" super-powered humans. It forces many of the old faces, Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman), Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) the Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis), to reunite to stop some sort of oncoming disaster.
- Blindspot—What if you merged the framing device of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man with NBC's thriller/espionage/conspiracy based formula used by dramas like The Blacklist? The result is Blindspot which features Jaimie Alexander as a mysterious woman who's left inside of a duffle bag in Times Square. The woman is covered in tattoos, which take the form of an encrypted message left for authorities. Soon she is teamed with FBI agent Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) to discover the source and content of the tattoo messages, and the woman's identity. The problem with the show is the concept comes off as clunky instead of engaging, and the clues don't feel like they're going to add up to anything that could be labeled a revelation worth multiple hours of the viewer's life watching episodes.
- Crowded Starring Patrick Warburton and Carrie Preston as parents who think they're finally free to have the place to their selves. But things change when their two daughters move back home.
- Emerald City—Described as a much more mature take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the series finds a 20-year-old Dorothy Gale (Adria Arjona) and her K9 police dog transported to the Land of Oz, where according to the show's description there is "competing kingdoms, lethal warriors, dark magic and a bloody battle for supremacy."
- Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris—Based on ITV's Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway from across the pond, Best Time Ever is NBC's latest attempt at the prime-time variety show. If you don't count the reality show competitions (i.e., America's Got Talent, Dancing With the Stars, etc.) there hasn't been a true prime-time variety show that mixed song and dance with comedy sketches in decades. This is Neil Patrick Harris' first high profile project since hosting the Oscars, with critics not kind to his hosting performance. And so far, critics have not been kind to Best Time Ever.
- Game of Silence—A childhood mistake that ends in death binds a group of friends together. As adults they reunite to assist one another, confront the past, and right some wrongs. If that sounds amazingly generic and vague, then you've got the gist of why you probably don't want to watch this show.
- Heartbreaker—Based on the life of Dr. Kathy Magliato, the series follows the trials and tribulations of Dr. Alex Panettiere, a cardiothoracic surgeon, who's outspoken and strong willed.
- Hot and Bothered—Eva Longoria returns to network TV as an actress on a telenovela. However, the events occurring behind the scenes are more soapy than anything on the show.
- The Player—The premise of this action series is out there. Super-rich people have the ability to predict crime. They use this ability to gamble on whether former military operative Alex Kane (Philip Winchester) can stop major crimes from happening. Mr. Johnson (Wesley Snipes) is the mysterious pit boss running the operation.
- Shades of Blue—Jennifer Lopez stars as a New York City detective and single mother Harlee Santos, who is in league with a group of dirty cops, taking bribes and protection money that she uses to support her daughter. When she’s caught by the FBI, Santos is forced to inform on her own “brothers.”
- Superstore—For all of you that wanted to see a show about those wacky times at Walmart, America Ferrera and Ben Feldman star in a workplace comedy centered around a mega store. As some point one starts wondering whether NBC just throws darts at a board to program their schedule.
The new television offerings for ABC:
- Quantico—Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) is a young recruit training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. While there, the worst terrorist incident since the September 11 attacks occurs in New York City. The FBI believes someone within Parrish's class at Quantico is involved in the attack, and some want to blame her.
- The Family—A politician (Joan Allen) rises to prominence after her son is kidnapped and presumed dead. About a decade later, the boy is seemingly found and returned. This reopens old wounds, happens in the wake of other dirty secrets, and suspicions build as to whether the boy is really who he says he is.
- Blood and Oil—Billy (Chace Crawford) and Cody Lefever (Rebecca Rittenhouse) move to Williston, North Dakota (a.k.a. “The Bakken”), booming after the biggest oil discovery in American history. They’re soon pitted against a ruthless tycoon (Don Johnson) who tries to unravel their lives and marriage.
- The Catch—The latest series in the Shonda Rhimes' "Shondaland" empire. The Catch follows Alice Vaughan (Mireille Enos) as a fraud investigator whose fiancé takes her for everything she's worth. Vaughan then makes it her mission in life to track him down. The situation is complicated by conflicted feelings and a desire for vengeance.
- Dr. Ken—Before Ken Jeong was an actor in The Hangover and Knocked Up, he was a medical doctor. Someone decided to ponder as to why no one has put Jeong in a sitcom based on his life? The answer is that it's not that funny.
- The Muppets—Created and produced by Bill Prady, the co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, The Muppets is meant to be a new iteration of The Muppet Show that's a bit more adult. Instead of the variety show of the classic series, this version is centered on a talk show hosted by Miss Piggy that follows Jimmy Kimmel. Kermit the Frog is her executive producer, but he and Miss Piggy are no longer married or a couple. In fact, Kermit is dating the head of marketing at ABC. The other muppets are various members of the crew working on the show. If this all sounds a bit like The Larry Sanders Show or 30 Rock, well it kinda is. According to Prady, the series will be “about the intrigue that happens behind the scenes, but also at home and their emotional and personal lives.”
- Of Kings and Prophets—Based on the Books of Samuel, the series will test whether audiences will want to watch a weekly Biblical epic that's basically a prime-time soap opera. Saul (Ray Winstone) is anointed King by the prophet Samuel (Mohammad Bakri). But Saul's is a bad leader, and God decides David (Oliver Rix) should be the King of Israel. The series aspires to be a sort of ancient epic, but the production design looks cheap and the performances are over the top.
- The Real O'Neals—The show is predicated on imagining a perfect Irish-Catholic family, and then injecting modern family issues into the mix. The lives of the O'Neals change when they're honest with one another, and accidentally with everyone in their church about considering divorce, having an eating disorder, and being gay. However, it's 2015 and television has been full of different takes on these aspects of life for the past three decades, so it doesn't feel fresh or original.
Tidbits about returning series for ABC:
- Scandal—The biggest change is that Olivia (Kerry Washington) and President Grant (Tony Goldwyn) are finally together, and divorce is in the air.
The new television offerings for Fox:
- The Grinder—Rob Lowe stars as beloved TV lawyer Dean Sanderson (a.k.a. "The Grinder"). When his long-running hit series comes to an end, he finds himself at a crossroads in life and decides to move back to Boise, Idaho, thinking he has the experience to take over his family’s law firm, which is led by his brother (Fred Savage).
- Bordertown—Created by Family Guy writer Mark Hentemann and produced by Seth MacFarlane, Bordertown follows two families living near the Mexico-United States border, with the cultural divisions and stereotypes being the main source of comedy. However, it's very one note. The series will take the place of American Dad! on Fox's Sunday night line-up.
- Grandfathered—With a lot of the new shows this year, they're based around concepts that seem like it might be the basis for a single episode, but how exactly it will be strung out over two or three seasons without becoming incredibly stale after episode two is a complete and total mystery. In Grandfathered, John Stamos stars as the ultimate bachelor who discovers he’s not only a father, but a grandfather. And that's it. I know some critics love this show, but I just wasn't charmed by it.
- Cooper Barrett's Guide To Surviving Life—Life after college is the main concern of this new series. Cooper (Jack Cutmore-Scott) moves into his first apartment with friends, and misadventures ensue.
- Lookinglass—Envisioned as a modern take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a corrupt cop is brought back to life and put in a younger, stronger body. This second chance is a balancing act, where the temptation to stray into vengeance is weighed against seeking justice.
- Lucifer—Based on characters from DC Entertainment’s Vertigo imprint of the same title, the Devil himself abandons Hell, tired of being the ruler of perdition, and decides to open a nightclub in Los Angeles. However, Lucifer does help the L.A.P.D. solve crimes every now and then.
- Minority Report—This television series is a direct sequel to the Steven Spielberg film of the same name, with both being based on the short-story by Philip K. Dick. The story picks up after the fall of the Pre-Crime Division. The pre-cognitives were taken into witness protection. But one of the pre-cogs, Dash (Stark Sands), is living among the population. He begins a professional relationship with Lara Vega (Meagan Good), a former pre-crime officer, in order to stop the crimes he sees in his visions. The problem with the TV show is that it takes the most interesting aspect of both the short story and film (i.e., the idea of whether or not the visions and the judgments made about those visions can be trusted), and basically ignores it in order to have a weekly cop procedural.
- Scream Queens—Created by the people behind Glee and American Horror Story, this new anthology series will revolve around a series of murders on a college campus during its first season. It is a very camp parody of horror movie tropes, with Jamie Lee Curtis along for the ride as the dean of the college. Emma Roberts stars as the vain leader of the college's premiere sorority. She begins a battle of wills with the dean, and all the while a killer is picking off students one by one.
Tidbits about some returning series for Fox:
- Empire—Chris Rock, Marisa Tomei, Oprah Winfrey, and others will appear on the show this season. Lucious (Terrence Howard) is trying to plot a comeback from jail, while different factions begin to fight for pieces of the "empire."
- Gotham—The reaction to the show's debut season was decidedly mixed. The powers that be have decided to retool by focusing even more on the villains on going almost full on campy. They also promise that some significant characters in the Batman mythos may be killed off.
- Bob's Burgers—Among the things that will happen this season: Bob sells Critter's bike in order to bail him out of jail, Tina rides a horse for the first time, and the family visits a haunted house for the Halloween episode. Wanda Sykes, Henry Winkler, Steve Buscemi, Key and Peele, and Megan Mullally will lend their voices to the show as well.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine—Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) has been sent to push paper in the PR section by his grinning nemesis (Kyra Sedgwick), leaving his precinct in the hands of his replacement (Bill Hader). Meanwhile, Jake (Andy Samberg) has officially made a move on his partner, Amy (Melissa Fumero).
The new television offerings for The CW:
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend—Rachel Bloom is Rebecca Bunch, a successful, driven, and possibly crazy young woman who gives up a successful legal career in a desperate attempt to pursue a former boyfriend from a summer camp in suburban West Covina, California ... which involves fantasy song and dance sequences. The series originally began as a half-hour comedy for Showtime. It's been reworked to be an hour-long dramedy for The CW.
- Containment—From Julie Plec, the creator of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, the series will follow the lives of people at the beginning stages of an epidemic. An unknown virus is discovered in urban Atlanta that has a 100 percent mortality rate. The authorities respond by quarantining an area of the city, and things go from bad to worse.
- DC's Legends of Tomorrow—A spin-off from Arrow and The Flash, the show, which stars Ciara Renee, Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Wentworth Miller, Caity Lotz, and Dominic Purcell, has been described as the place where ideas too crazy for The Flash or Arrow will be realized. The basic story will see heroes and villains teaming up to battle Vandal Savage across time.
Tidbits about returning series for The CW:
- Jane the Virgin—The kidnapping of baby Mateo will reveal Jane's strength as a new mother and a woman. Whether Jane's parents will stay married is an open question as season 2 begins.
- iZombie—Liv and Blaine come to the conclusion that someone is knocking off the zombies, and this will bring them together.
- The Flash—When The Flash comes back for season 2, the Atom Smasher (Adam Copeland) will be stirring up trouble. Another feature worth noting is the introduction of DC's multiple earth concept. The season will feature several timelines running simultaneously.