BuzzSugar

The Fox Fall Schedule: My Take (With Video!)

BuzzSugar — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:45:13 -0700

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. I'm excited about this new Abrams series - based on the clips I've seen it looks like The X-Files meets Lost with a tiny bit of Alias sprinkled in. Plus a lot of needles. The mood is dark and tense but the oh-so-adorable Joshua Jackson is back to his wise-cracking ways.
Joss Whedon's Dollhouse will not arrive until mid-season and will be paired up with 24. Between that and their big Tuesday night, Fox is going to be dishing out a ton of sci-fi dramas. I'm OK with this since the sci-fi genre lends itself to great characters and gives us a bit of everything: romance, intrigue, mystery, action, even comedy. I think it's a smart type of show to stock up on, especially from the folks who do it best (Abrams, Whedon).
One interesting thing to note for Dollhouse and Fringe is that they are both what Fox is calling "remote free TV." They promise to have significantly fewer commercials through the entire run of their seasons. Also, both dramas are introducing what they described as "ingénues" in Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse) and Anna Torv (Fringe). Who knows? Maybe these ladies will become the next Jennifer Garner or Gillian Anderson.
I really love Niecy Nash and think the premise of the new comedy Do Not Disturb is cute (as is Jerry O'Connell). I'm not totally sold on whether or not it's built to last, but I'll cross my fingers. I did see some clips of Mitchell Hurwitz's first animated comedy, Sit Down, Shut Up, and wiped away some tears from laughing. The cast of voices is great, though we've got a while before that one's on the air.

I've got some clips and photos from both new shows this fall, and you can check them out if you read more.

Fringe

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Do Not Disturb

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Dollhouse

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Photos courtesy of Fox

The CBS Fall Schedule: My Take (Plus Video!)

BuzzSugar — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:30:06 -0700

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! Looking back at my coverage of last year's upfronts, I realized the show followed exactly the same pattern then: Things looked bleak for a while, but then the show went on a big upswing and made the schedule without trouble.
Which of the canceled series will you miss most? Cane never got a lot of buzz, Moonlight had a big fan following but not big ratings, and Shark . . . well, I'm not really sure what the issues were with Shark, to be honest.
Speaking of which, I assume the failure of Jericho to gain an audience after the peanut campaign pretty much puts the kibbosh on any chance of Moonlight returning no matter what fans use to bombard the network, right?

I've got some clips and photos from all the new CBS shows, and you can check them out if you read more.

Eleventh Hour

The Ex List

Worst Week

Project Gary

The Mentalist

Harper's Island

The CW's Fall Schedule: My Take

BuzzSugar — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:30:01 -0700

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? Seems like that would give all the shows a boost.
I'm actually looking forward to Stylista, Tyra Banks' The Devil Wears Prada-esque show about assistants trying to work their way up the fashion magazine ladder. I'm surprised Anne Slowey is the magazine personality involved, though - when she's guest-judged Project Runway auditions before, I haven't found her terribly charismatic.
Speaking of Stylista, I guess we'll see if that gets big enough to make up for Elle reportedly losing all its ties to Runway!

Some other thoughts - plus pictures of the new shows - so read more.

Hooray for Reaper! The buzz had been sounding good on a renewal for a couple of days now, but that doesn't mean I didn't breathe a big sigh of relief when I saw the announcement. The current plan seems to be putting Reaper on Thursday nights with Supernatural once Smallville finishes its run, and I could see those two shows pairing well together.
We heard a few weeks back that the CW was drastically cutting back on comedies - but I didn't picture that meaning only having two on the schedule and dumping them on Friday nights! Also, there was talk at some point of wrapping Girlfriends up with a TV movie, but I haven't seen anything official about that.
Will this be the year the CW can really break out? It seems like they're going really hard for this teen and 20something niche, and I'm not sure if that will work forever - but hey, it worked for the old WB back in the Dawson's Creek ad Felicity days, right?

Some photos:
Surviving the Filthy Rich

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Stylista

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Photos courtesy of The CW

ABC's Fall Schedule: My Take (With Video!)

BuzzSugar — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:30:24 -0700

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." So the network is mostly doing it over, bringing back the majority of the new shows from last year.
That doesn't mean ABC isn't actively developing shows for later in the year: They've picked up 20 pilots, split pretty evenly between comedy and drama.
McPherson promoted a few of those shows in his presentation, including Four Play, the new comedy from Will and Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. If the show is as funny as those two were just talking about it, we'll be in for a treat.
Also funny: clips from ABC's remake of the Web series In the Motherhood. It reminded me a bit of Bravo's Significant Others if all the characters were moms battling bratty children.
On the downside, the presentation ended with clips from Wipeout, the game show with people falling and running into things. The voiceover dared me not to laugh. I didn't laugh.

To see what I thought of the new shows - Life on Mars, reality show Opportunity Knocks, and animated series The Goode Family - and see clips and pictures of them for yourself, just read more.

Life on Mars
I was pleasantly surprised at how faithful the trailer for this BBC remake seemed to the original - and maybe I'm warming to Jason O'Mara as time-traveling detective Sam Tyler after all. Here's a video and pictures:

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Opportunity Knocks
This traveling game show seems family-friendly almost to a fault. It definitely reminded me of the Saturday morning game shows of my childhood. I see it as more a companion to America's Funniest Home Videos, though, not necessarily anchoring Tuesday night.

The Goode Family
This animated series about a family of vegan, politically correct, recycle-happy folks from King of the Hill's Mike Judge could either be hilarious or unbearable. From the clip, I was actually leaning toward unbearable. What's your take?

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Oh, and here's a Scrubs-on-ABC promo, just because: