Local Programs Fall 2015
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FALL PRE VIEW
THE EMOJI LEGEND Because who reads stuff these days? Flame
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Good Show
Trash Bin
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Bad Show
Superman
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Superhero Show
Knife
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Horror Show
Crying Laughter
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An Actually Funny Comedy
Ghost
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Supernatural Show
Gavel
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Law Procedural
Police Officer
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Police Procedural
Needle
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Medical Show
Boot
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Reboot
Wave
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Washed Actor Comeback
Heart
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Rom-Com
Gun
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Show With High Violence
Live Sign
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Show with A Live Audience
Hourglass
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Period Piece
Walter White
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Shows About Bad Men
Female Symbol
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Show Featuring a Strong Leading Lady
1 / FALL TV PREVIEW
CBS
FALL TV PREVIEW / 2
LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT STARRING Stephen Colbert. PREMIERES Sept. 8
Photo: Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS
SUPERGIRL STARRING Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks, Calista Flockhart, David Harewood, Chyler Leigh. PREMIERES Oct. 26
Photo:Darren Michaels/CBS
3 / FALL TV PREVIEW
When Stephen Colbert was first announced as David Letterman’s Late Show successor in April, the first question to come to mind was, “How different will IRL Colbert be from fictional Colbert?” But as we’ve seen in several promos since he shaved the Colbeard in early June, the two are surprisingly similar. Colbert became a comedic icon as a he stayed in character as the faux Conservative blowhard for 17 years (!) on The Daily Show and his own spinoff. And it’s some of the very same traits—the bravado, the feigned ignorance, the fantastic asides, and, of course, his penchant for political humor—in his teaser videos that have us eagerly awaiting the new era of the Late Show. The scheduled guests for his debut, Jeb Bush and George Clooney, tip a broader appeal to the pop culture masses without entirely abandoning his political roots. And the very next night he has a performance slated from Kendrick Lamar, who still owes us a CDQ of his untitled song from the last time he performed on The Colbert Report. Trevor Noah will be more of an unknown over at The Daily Show, but we have a fairly solid idea of what to expect from Colbert on network television. Anything less than him helming the best late night show around would come as a shock.
A Superman prequel lasted a whole decade on the small screen. Can a show about his less popular younger cousin that will probably never feature the big man himself enjoy the same success? More importantly, can Supergirl step up and fill a blatant female void in the otherwise ever-prospering superhero genre? It’s going to take a handful of episodes before a solid judgment can be made. Right now though, we have a potential successor in a not-long-enough line of plucky badass heroines, and a series that, despite living in a post Batman Begins world, refreshingly doesn’t try to go dark. It hews closer to the breezy fun and camp of that mid-90s gem, Lois & Clark. It’s the exact antithesis of the tone developing in DC’s film universe, and that decision couldn’t be more welcome. Of course, there’s no telling if the masses will feel the same. It’s going to be tricky, but if Supergirl finds the right balance in tone, remaining lighthearted while appeasing the core comics audience, we could be looking at the fall’s breakaway hit.
LIMITLESS STARRING Jake McDorman, Jennifer Carpenter, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Hill Harper, Colin Salmon. PREMIERES Sept. 22
The key to creating a great spin-off is establishing a new identity only loosely tied to the original source material. Apparently no one involved in bringing Limitless to television was told this or could be bothered to take it to heart, as the pilot is a STRAIGHT rip-off of the movie. Instead of struggle writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) we get struggle musician Brian Finch (Jake McDorman). Like Eddie, Brian is first introduced to NZT from an old friend who’s gone on to flourish thanks to the fictionalized version of Adderall. And when both realize how real the drug flourish is they return to their friend only to find them murdered. The similarities don’t end with the story, though. The show also becomes oversaturated when our lead goes under the influence, and we’re given a couple of the same extreme zooms, albeit executed more poorly. Ideally, these helicopter parent level ties will cease after the pilot. But our first taste was soured by the worst kind of deja vu.
Photo: CBS
CODE BLACK STARRING Marcia Gay Harden, Bonnie Somerville, Melanie Kannokada, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Luis Guzman. PREMIERES Sept. 30
In medicine, the term “code black” refers to shit-iscray-this-is-not-a-drill type of situations, like bomb threats, mass casualties, or ER patients dead on arrival. It informs just how high-stress this new medical drama is, which follows en emergency room staff at an L.A. hospital that deals with code black situations on an episodic basis. Stubborn doctors butt heads, and Marcia Gay Harden plays a particularly curmudgeonly genius both respected and feared by her peers. Her methods are questionable but—surprise!—they end up saving the day. Sound like another grouchy genius? Yeah, it’s like House all over again, except in more high-stress, tickingtime-bomb situations. And just like House, while this is intriguing, its appeal may not last beyond a couple episodes.
Photo: Neil Jacobs/CBS
FALL TV PREVIEW / 4
Oh boy, a new show about a “modern family” that splits each branch of the tree into their own story arcs. It’d be easier to write this off as a rehash that’s bland-on-arrival instead of two brilliant seasons to hook you in first—It’s on CBS; it has Colin Hanks. And a fully white cast. And while threefourths of this pilot is indeed B A S I C, the fourth vignette, which unites the disparate family for a funeral, shows a flash of original flavor (mostly thanks to the parents, Dianne Wiest and James Brolin sonning their TV kids) that if the show maintains and ramps up, could make it worthwhile. This is a classic case of waiting for critics who have to watch or friends whose opinion you trust to tell you if it ever actually gets good.
Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS
ANGEL FROM HELL STARRING Jane Lynch, Maggie Lawson, Kyle Bomheimer, Kevin Pollak. PREMIERES Nov. 5
Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS
5 / FALL TV PREVIEW
Jane Lynch is usually a pretty entertaining onscreen presence, but Angel From Hell, in which she plays Amy, a crazy, alcoholic guardian angel (obviously with a heart of gold deep down) is already past the point of salvation from the depths of TV trash hell. It’s hard to see how much further the show can go on this premise that the allknowing, off-the-rocks Amy is here to help Allison Fuller (Maggie Lawson) navigate life—like saving her from cheating boyfriends. Lynch’s character should be funny (she drinks out of a flask! She’s not a regular guardian angel, she’s a cool guardian angel!) but the jokes are already pretty stale. Jane Lynch deserves so much more.
CSI (FINALE MOVIE) STARRING William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, Ted Danson, Jorja Fox, Eric Szmanda, Robert David Hall. PREMIERES Sept. 27
Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has long lost the flare that once earned it 26 million viewers per episode in 2004—the “Who Are You?” scream of Roger Daltry in the credits that used to signify excitement now feels more like horror. I don’t have many good things to say about CSI (even though they did put like 25 bullets into Justin Bieber), but if one show deserves a two-hour TV movie sendoff, it’s this one. Starting in 2000, CSI has seen the Golden Age of TV come and go, and it’s soldiered on, dissecting weird dead bodies and spinning off like mad—CSI: Miami and NY, but there’s still CSI: Cyber (starring Shad Moss!) to carry on the brand. This is the show that really kicked off a new era of procedurals, and it invented a totally
new subgenre of medical experts who solve the crimes instead of the police. Its success is also what probably propelled CBS to becoming every Middle American’s favorite network the number one network in America. So yeah, its 15-year run deserves to be celebrated, even if it’s going to be a stale one. Mostly everyone will be back though, including the OG enigmatic genius-coroner, William Petersen’s Gil Grissom. If you haven’t stayed up on CSI, you probably don’t have to tune in for this two-hour finale—but at least pop some champagne and pour one out for one of the biggest hits of the 2000s.
FALL TV PREVIEW / 6
NBC
7 / FALL TV PREVIEW
BEST TIME EVER WITH NEIL PATRICK HARRIS STARRING Neil Patrick Harris. PREMIERES Sept. 15
Be honest: After watching Neil Patrick Harris smarm is way through a decade of How I Met Your Mother and stumble his way through a poorly conceived Oscar telecast earlier this year, you probably had enough of his schtick, at least for a minute. Well bad news, he’s back on TV! Fortunately, Best Time Ever’s variety format will see NPH in his natural element as a pure showman. We have to hope that this show will allow him to focus on the more charming parts of his star persona while keeping the douchey dudebro aspects to a minimum. This show is a bit of a mystery at the moment, but if you’re looking for a potential skeleton for what Best Time Ever could become, check out ITV’s Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, on which NPH’s show is officially based. What you can expect is a combination of musical numbers, sketches, random game spots, and a whole lot of guest stars.
Photo: NBC
CHICAGO MED STARRING S. Epatha Merkerson, Oliver Platt, Nick Gehlfuss, Yaya DaCosta, Colin Donnell, Brian Tee. PREMIERES Nov. 10
Forget the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we need to talk about Dick Wolf, the man who once ruled the broadcast TV world with countless Law & Order iterations and who is now doing the same with his Chicago-based franchises. First came Chicago Fire (that one is about firemen and EMTs), then last year brought us Chicago P.D. (shockingly, it’s about cops), and now it’s time for the perfectly titled Chicago Med (they’re doctors, guys). And why yes, there is already a four-show crossover event (Wolf’s one remaining Law & Order joint, SVU, is involved as well) in the works. On its own, Chicago Med is certain to be Just Fine. Wolf and fellow EP Matt Olmstead put together an unsurprisingly solid cast full of professional actors—Oliver Platt and S. Epatha Merkerson are the notable veterans—and if Med follows the same path as the other two Windy City-based dramas, you can expect well-executed weekly stories and better-than-expected ongoing character arcs.
EPhoto: lizabeth Morris/NBC
FALL TV PREVIEW / 8
THE PLAYER STARRING Wesley Snipes, Philip Winchester, Charity Wakefield, Damon Gupton. PREMIERES Sept. 24
The Player in one sentence: an over-the-top, techfilled action thriller trying to revive the career of Wesley Snipes. But it’s actually not bad. Philip Winchester plays Alex Kane, “The Player,” a cocksure security consultant who backs it up with nonchalant action, the former bad guy (ish) who’s plucked from his troubled past. “The Pit Boss” Mr. Johnson (Snipes) and “The Dealer” Cassandra King (Charity Wakefield) recruit our boy Alex into a fucked up game in which rich people bet on crime with the odds calculated by all-powerful surveillance. As Mr. Johnson puts it in just one of his perfectly cheesy lines, “The world is always watching itself; we just happen to be paying attention.” The biggest sell here is the gratuitous actions sequences. Like when Alex jumps off a roof, crashes into a hotel room, and smacks up a would-be kidnapper with a #rare bottle of wine.
Photo: Gregory Peters/NBC
THE BLACKLIST STARRING James Spader, Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Ryan Eggold, Harry Lennix. PREMIERES Aug. 26
Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
9 / FALL TV PREVIEW
NBC’s big hit drama only narrowly avoided the dreaded sophomore slump in Season 2, as the ongoing mysteries surrounding Lizzie, Red, and the true nature of their relationship began to swallow the show. However, after two season’s worth of frustrating non-answers and misdirection, The Blacklist delivered some key information and more importantly, put its two lead characters on the run from the FBI. Heading into Season 3, The Blacklist is at a bit of a crossroads. Its ratings success guarantees that it’ll be around for many years to come and therefore NBC will likely want to sustain the status quo of procedural cases of the week mixed with that lucrative James Spader wit. Meanwhile, the story is crying out for an extended disruption of said status quo. How the show navigates these two sides of itself will be something to look out for this fall.
THE CARMICHAEL SHOW STARRING Jerrod Carmichael, Amber Stevens West, David Alan Grier, Lil Rel Howery, Loretta Devine. PREMIERES Aug. 26
Headed up by rising stand-up Jerrod Carmichael, this sitcom’s a throwback to the old days of The Cosby Show. Centered on one family (loosely based on Carmichael’s real family), it’s a grab bag of life’s problems—relationships, politics, and the wide generational gaps between parents and their children. Carmichael is still finding his legs as an actor, but he’s propped up especially by Lil Rel Howery as the brother character and the onpoint dad jokes of David Alan Grier. The comic’s unique brand of wit—he has a penchant for making jokes that make you squirm, make you think, but most important make you laugh—gives the show a much-needed edge and keeps it closer to Cosby and further away from The King of Queens. The Carmichael Show is cloaked in the tired wares of the sitcom, but what this comedy—which does have promise—is best at is throwing an issue into the family living room and watching all sides of the argument come head-to-head, usually in a funny, entertaining manner.
Photo: Matthias Clamer/NBC
TRUTH BE TOLD STARRING Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tone Bell, Vanessa Lachey, Bresha Webb. PREMIERES Oct. 16
Your boy Zack Morris is back in action!!! Unfortunately, that’s where the excitement for this show ends. Truth Be Told, centered around two best buds (played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tone Bell) and their wives, is a bad show entirely WAY too focused on race. You see, Gosselaar’s Mitch is white, and Bell’s Russell is black. Truth Be Told acts like they invented the interracial friendship, and they expect you to find it revolutionary—and funny. But is it really funny that Gosselaar’s character needs to be told why it’s not okay for him to sing the N-word while listening to Jay Z? (“You should hear me do it, because I don’t pronounce the R,” is something this dude actually says.) Is it really funny that he’s worried people will assume he has a thing for ethnic girls? No, not really. It is funny though that Mitch and Russell are depicted as Jay Z fans who belt “Empire State of Mind” out of a convertible. SMH, Zack didn’t save Jessie from pill addiction for this shit.
Photo: Colleen Hayes/NBC
FALL TV PREVIEW / 10
HEROES REBORN STARRING Jack Coleman, Gatlin Green, Ryan Guzman, Robbie Kay, Rya Kihlstedt, Zachary Levi, Judith Shekoni, Kiki Sukezane, Danika Yarosh, Henry Zebrowski. PREMIERES Sept. 24
NBC has decided to give the world what nobody wanted: a revival of Tim Kring’s Heroes. Even in its first, best season, the show never took any real risks with its storytelling, evidenced by its lackluster ffinale that left a lot of fans disappointed. From there, Heroes descended into madness and lost its focus. Heroes, about a group of ordinary people who begin to realize they have extraordinary powers, relies on a premise that has been told time after time in pop culture, but this particular iteration just couldn’t find a way to make the story distinct, and over time, the writers completely lost sight of the characters at the heart of the story. So...it sounds like the perfect show to bring back, right? The darkness of the Reborn trailers seems a lot closer to the slow, dark second season than to the first. The series needed adrenaline back then, and it certainly needs it now if it hopes to redeem the series after it was canceled the first time around.
Photo: Christos Kalohoridis/NBC
BLINDSPOT STARRING Jaimie Alexander, Sullivan Stapleton, Audrey Esparza, Rob Brown, Marianne Jean-Baptiste. PREMIERES Sept. 21
Bland characters, even blander action and a mystery that would’ve maybe been intriguing in 1998. A woman dropped off in Times Square awakens with her body covered in tattoos and total amnesia. Turns out her muscle memory is intact though— she’s a complete badass, capable of saving the day via combat and those tattoos which handily point towards future crimes. Craaazy, right? But plenty of series coast on recycled plots thanks to great characters. Too bad the chick who can’t even remember her own personality is the only character who comes close to having one. You COULD give Blindspot a chance…or you could just watch Alias season 3 for a better Badass Woman With No Memories narrative and then go on with your life. Returning Shows to Check Up On: SVU, Chicago Fire
Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
11 / FALL TV PREVIEW
Returning Shows You Can Continue to Ignore: The Voice, Mysteries of Laura, Chicago PD, Undateable, Grimm
ABC
FALL TV PREVIEW / 12
THE MUPPETS STARRING The Muppets. PREMIERES Sept. 22
Will The Muppets ever die? No, obvs, as they’re just puppets, but it’s their youthful spirit and the ability to have this motley crew change with the times that has kept them relevant since the 1950s. Their latest incarnation is quite possibly their best, with the squad being followed around mockumentary-style as they work on a late-night talk show (Up Late with Miss Piggy). The Muppets will blend what heads might remember from their previous shows like The Muppet Show, with celebrities making cameos, while exploring how a band of puppets deals with each other in high-pressure situations... like making sure Miss Piggy’s needs are attended to. With Miss Piggy and Kermit going through a public break-up while having to maintain a working relationship (as Kermit is executive producer behind Up Late with Miss Piggy), you’re bound to find these two going ham (no pun intended) (OK, some pun intended) on each other. Basically, The Muppets is the Muppets growing up with you, giving you everything you appreciated about them in the past, while staying relevant to the issues you’re experiencing in life as well.
Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC
QUANTICO STARRING Priyanka Chopra, Jake McLaughlin, Aunjanue Ellis, Yasmine Al Masri, Johanna Braddy, Tate Ellington, Graham Rogers, Josh Hopkins. PREMIERES Nov. 10
Photo: Guy D’Alema/ABC
13 / FALL TV PREVIEW
Maybe it’s the name Quantico that’s keeping this show from garnering more buzz—a name that may sound completely foreign to those unfamiliar with crime shows or geography. Quantico, of course, refers to the city in Virginia home to the FBI headquarters. If you’re soooo over crime procedurals, don’t write off Quantico: It may be the fresh face you’re looking for. The ABC thriller follows a group of new recruits who endure tough, mind-boggling, and physically straining academy training, all thirsting to become FBI agents. Some have haunted pasts, others are hard to trust, and there are many twists and flashbacks along the way. In a flashforward scene at the end of the first episode (which is likely to be revisited in a big finale moment), one of them is suspected of facilitating a terrorist attack in New York City. Intrigue! Certainly a set-up, right? Quantico is a fun watch, thanks in large part to its lead, Priyanka Chopra (a woman of color!), who plays the cocky, witty, strong, and sexually liberated Alex Parrish. The verdict? Quantico is FIRE.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER STARRING Viola Davis, Billy Brown, Alfred Enoch, Jack Falahee, Katie Findlay, Aja Naomi King, Matt McGorry, Karla Souza, Charlie Weber, Liza Weil. PREMIERES Sept. 24
In its first season, How To Get Away With Murder was wildly inconsistent week-to-week. At times, the cases of the week were a necessary break from the exhausting longer murder arc, but at others, the case of the week was so dumb that the episode should have thrown it out altogether to focus on the longer murder arc. Season two’s Big Murder was introduced at the end of season one, when Rebecca was found dead. Now, no one really liked Rebecca, so it’s a classic case of It Could Have Been Anyone. And if season one has set the precedent, then Rebecca’s murder will probably have to be followed by a second, linked murder in order for it to count as the Big Murder, much like the Lila Stangard and Sam Keating murders comprised season one’s Big Murder. We’re throwing around the word “murder” a lot here, but we can guarantee that the cast of How To Get Away With Murder will say it even more—probably in the season two premiere alone. Now, will Viola Davis’s Annalise Keating ever give her students any actual homework?
Photo: Mitchell Haaseth/ABC
DR. KEN STARRING Ken Jeong, Suzy Nakamura, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Dave Foley, Jonathan Slavin. PREMIERES Oct. 2
Are ABC comedies cursed? Selfie was great, and so was Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 but alas, both lay in early graves. This fall, new ABC comedy Dr. Ken premieres: Will it face the same fate? It might, with that cheesy sitcom format, but there’s a lot to root for in this new comedy. First of all, it’s centered around an Asian family without being grossly stereotyped or completely white-washed as showrunners are wont to do. It also stars funny man Ken Jeong, who’s hilarious basically no matter what. In a TV lineup stacked with doctors, Dr. Ken Park sticks out as the sassy doc who’s not afraid of cutting right to the chase. Outside the hospital, he’s a loveably goofy dad whose therapist wife (Suzy Nakamura) gives a grounded dose of reality, especially when it comes to their children: a Katy-Perry loving son who’s not afraid of being himself, and a teenage daughter whose teen girl antics make Dr. Ken extra-paranoid. There are a lot of comical scenes, but a lot of them are also refreshingly endearing.
Photo: Danny Feld/ABC
FALL TV PREVIEW / 14
WICKED CITY STARRING Ed Westwick, Erika Christensen, Jeremy Sisto, Taissa Farmiga, Gabriel Luna, Karolina Wydra, Evan Ross. PREMIERES Oct. 27
Sunset Strip in the ‘80s, plus serial murder, starring the Chuck Bass, that creepy guy from Gossip Girl—WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT? Full disclaimer: I was only able to see the first five minutes of this show, but I was pretty into what I saw. Sure, it’s pulp-y in an overproduced way—Chuck Bass murders a girl almost ASAP while she blows him and Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” plays— but pulp has to be what you expect for an ABC show about an ‘80s serial killer with a rock ‘n’ roll kick. The interesting thing will be to see one, how they integrate Erika Christensen, a maybe love interest/partner in murder (Swimfan—she could do it), and two, how the show moves from episode one. Serial killers can be interesting for 45 minutes—making them interesting for entire seasons is much trickier. As long as Wicked City doesn’t mistake gratuitousness for good drama and/or turn into a Ryan Murphy knock-off, there might be something here.
Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC
FRESH OFF THE BOAT STARRING Randall Park, Constance Wu, Hudson Yang, Forrest Wheeler, Ian Chen. PREMIERES Sept. 22
Photo: Ron Tom/ABC
15 / FALL TV PREVIEW
The first season of Fresh Off the Boat, based on Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name, ended up being one of the best new comedies of the season. It followed Eddie and his Taiwanese family making a big move from D.C. to Orlando to open a hilariously cowboy-themed restraunt. While it delved into typical family sitcom tropes, it felt fresh because it tackled race and the whole fucked concept of the American Dream head-on. Plus, it helped that the incredibly gifted cast (especially standout Constance Wu) inhabited the Huangs so well as they navigated family life in Florida. We’re hoping that season two expands on their growing pains in Florida—from Louis finally getting Cattleman’s Ranch to somewhat take off, Jessica’s successful real estate career to the boys especially Eddie experiencing all the wonderful, awful awkwardness that adolescence brings.
BLACK-ISH STARRING Anthony Anderson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Yara Shahidi, Marcus Scribner, Miles Brown, Marsai Martin. PREMIERES Sept. 23
Don’t front: when we heard a major network was launching a black family sitcom specifically anchored around the idea of being middle-class and black in present-day America, we all expected the worst. Instead Black-ish launched an assured debut season that came out of the gates pretty damn strong and only got better—and funnier—as the year progressed. It’s really not that wild to call it the contemporary answer to The Cosby Show: a crop of kids each with distinguishable personalities; a wisecracking Dad; Larry Fishburne dropping in to son everyone as the ultra-wise grandfather; and if there was ever an heir to Phylicia Rashad, Tracee Ellis Ross is the one true. But beyond that, each episode aims to be more than just laugh-out-loud funny. Then there’s the actual comedic style, which zips past traditional sitcom fare. Where Empire, the other big broadcast network win towards racial equality, seems dangerously close to the edge, Black-ish’s measured, steadily confident debut suggests it really has nowhere to go but up.
Photo: Nicole Wilder/ABC
BLOOD & OIL STARRING Don Johnson, Chace Crawford, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Amber Valletta, Scott Michael Foster. PREMIERES Sept. 27
Blood & Oil begins with a pretty fatal seeming car crash—luckily for us, Nate Archibald (Chase Crawford) and his wife have nary a scratch on their very pretty faces. The pair are headed to North Dakota—newly booming after an oil discovery—to start a laundromat for some inexplicable reason. When their fresh laundry hopes are dashed, Nate looks into getting into the oil industry, in this drifter town, run by Hap Briggs (Don Johnson) who of course has a bad boy son with a HUGE chip on his shoulder (Scott Michael Foster). While Blood & Oil tries to really lean in on its nighttime soap appeal, it ends up being weirdly boring. Also, oil is the best actor on the show. Returning Shows to Check Up On: The Goldbergs, Scandal, Shark Tank
Photo: Fred Hayes/ABC
Returning Shows You Can Continue to Ignore: Dancing With the Stars, Castle, The Middle, Modern Family, Nashville, Grey’s Anatomy, Last Man Standing, Beyond the Tank, Once Upon a Time FALL TV PREVIEW / 16
FOX
17 / FALL TV PREVIEW
MINORITY REPORT STARRING Daniel London, Laura Regan, Meagan Good, Stark Sands, Li Jun Li, Wilmer Valderrama. PREMIERES Sept. 21
Someone please help. I can’t tell if Minority Report is supposed to be funny. Either the show is filled with intended comedy that falls flat, or moments so goddamn awful they feel like failed comedy. My head is more tormented than a precog’s trying to figure it out. Minority Report follows the unlikely (ugh) duo of detective Lara Vega (Meagan Good) and Dash (Stark Sands), a precog liberated after the events in the 2002 film. The premise itself isn’t bad, but it’s interrupted far too often with poor dialogue, obnoxious references, and eye-rolling technology. There are selfie drones, personalized weed ads on the subway, and Vega’s mom dropping this gem: “When I was your age we had this thing called Tinder.” Fox must be suffering from the same problem as Dash, as it couldn’t predict its own future and see the brick it’s about to toss up.
Photo: Michael Becker/FOX
GRANDFATHERED STARRING John Stamos, Josh Peck, Paget Brewster, Christina Milian, Kelly Jenrette, Ravi Patel. PREMIERES Sept. 29
Are you ready for a show that features Uncle Jesse as a restaurant owner that’s also divorced bachelor on the prowl who is surprised by his long-lost son Josh Nichols and his baby daughter? Neither are we, but apparently Fox wants some new-school Three Men & A Baby show to pop off. While the premise makes sense (and possibly happens more often than we realize), it’s hard to believe that this guy who says he never cared about having a dad around suddenly wants to find his pops and has a 3-D printer chilling in his house and somehow had a child with a beautiful woman (Christina Milian) who doesn’t care about him would be trying to chill with his pops. It could be worth the watch, but there’s just so little to be invested in.
Photo: FOX
FALL TV PREVIEW / 18
EMPIRE STARRING Terrence Howard, Taraji P. Henson, Bryshere Gray, Jussie Smollett, Trai Byers, Grace Gaeley, Kaitlin Doubleday. PREMIERES Sept. 23
Photo: Chuck Hodes/FOX
Is there any feasible way that this show maintains its momentum? It’s a scientific law, let’s call it, The OC Principle, that a show that burns as bright and fast in its debut season simply must fall sooner or later. Or since its Empire we can use music terminology and say, the sophomore slump awaits. Will Lucious and the Lyons hit a “You’re So Beautiful” side-step and keep the reign going with more absurd twists, fourth-wall-breaking songs, and undeniable Shakespearean soap opera melodrama? Or were the Boo-Boo Kittys and blowjob bibs a collective one-hit wonder? The new season picks up where the finale left off, with Lucious in jail for Bunky’s murder and Jamal his new favorite, and the only family member on his side. In the interim a seemingly never-ending slew of Very Special Guests have been announced—everyone from Kelly Rowland to Marisa Tomei—that imply the show is going big to maintain. Meanwhile Cookie has become a bonafide late-career breakout for Taraji P. Henson, “Drip Drop” actually gets played on the radio IRL, and the show broke ratings
19 / FALL TV PREVIEW
records something like every week. Empire is the guiltiest of pleasures, especially for hip-hop fans, but there’s an inherent danger zone that all absurdist nighttime soap operas must remain aware of. But when Terrence Howard is presiding over the BET Awards like he’s actually a billion dollar music mogul and Hakeem’s Bryshere Gray thinks he already has enough juice to get into nightclubs VIP style, one starts to fear that Empire’s overnight success has gone to everyone’s heads. Not to mention, most of the show was made in a vacuum, with the majority of season one completed before the first few episodes aired. And that season churned through story at an alarming pace—at the current rate, the show will drop a five year flash forward on us by season three. Are the cast and crew still aware enough to tap into what made the show a hit in the first place, and settle down for a healthy marathon instead of an over-and-done-with sprint? Hopefully, or else it might become FOX’s next Glee.
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH STARRING Will Forte, Kristen Schaal, January Jones. PREMIERES Sept. 27
The Last Man on Earth was 2014’s most unlikely breakout—a comedy about the last living man after the world’s entire population gets wiped out? What happens after episode one? Step by step though, Lord, Miller and Forte proved that they had a plan to expand the show’s universe. First Kristen Schaal showed up (and married Forte’s Phil Miller). Then January Jones, then Mel Rodriguez, Mary Steenburgen, Cleopatra Coleman, and Boris Kodjoe. But the (dark) heart of the show was always Phil Miller, a disgraceful human being with so much self-loathing and insecurity. The back half of the first season showed Phil dealing with human interaction and trying to become a better person, but with one step forward, his selfish immaturity always took him two steps back, until he was finally kicked off the reservation. Which is further proof that Lord and Miller have a plan: going into season two, our two main characters, Phil and Schaal’s Carol, are hitting the road all on their own.
Photo: John P. Fleenor/FO
SCREAM QUEENS STARRING Emma Roberts, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lea Michele, Abigail Breslin, Nasim Pedrad, Oliver Hudson, Skyler Samuels, Keke Palmer, Billie Lourd, Diego Boneta, Glen Powell, Lucien Laviscount, Niecy Nash, Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande. PREMIERES Sept. 22
Another fall TV season, another Ryan Murphy project. Murphy’s latest is Scream Queens—a horrorcomedy anthology series—featuring none other than scream queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. At Wallace University, 20 years ago, a mysterious and murderous incident happened and was covered up. Today, a string of murders begin plaguing the campus with the Kappa House at its center. Helmed by horrific bitch Chanel (Emma Roberts) and her henchwomen (including known baby Ariana Grande), she won’t allow anyone without the right pedigree to pledge until she’s forced by Dean Munsch (Curtis). So, while the student body is being offed by a red-masked devil, college “outcasts” like Lea Michele, Keke Palmer, Skyler Samuels are going through the hellish pledging process under Chanel’s Louboutin heel. With the promise of a murder every episode, Scream Queens is a fizzy, bitchy bloody cocktail of Murphy’s personal bests.
Photo: Steve Dietl/FOX
FALL TV PREVIEW / 20
THE GRINDER STARRING Rob Lowe, Fred Savage, William Davane, Mary Elizabeth Ellis. PREMIERES Sept. 29
Photo: Ray Mickshaw/FOX
GOTHAM STARRING Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz, Zabryna Guevara, Sean Pertwee, Carmen Bicondova, John Doman, Morena Baccarin, Nicholas D’Agosto, Chris Chalk, James Frain, Jessica Lucas, Michael Chiklis, Drew Powell. PREMIERES Sept. 21
Photo: Jessica Miglio/FOX
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The premise: a hot shot actor (Rob Lowe) who played a lawyer on a cheesy Law & Order knockoff comes back home and reunites with his little brother (Fred Savage), who is a lawyer in real life, and then fake lawyering mixes in with real lawyering. I was under the impression that we’d grown out of the age of fiercely constructed, over-plotted sitcoms, and yet here we are. But underneath that ridiculously thick premise is actually a semi-decent show with good performances and a pretty impressive understanding of comedic pacing. Lowe, who found a third (fourth?) stage of his career playing the uber-optimistic Chris Traeger on Parks & Recreation, is still banking of that earnestness, with an added layer of obliviousness (he drops a “literally” in the first episode and it’s pretty exciting); Savage, back on TV for the first time since 2006 has the bewildered, overshadowed younger brother down pat; and let’s give a round of applause to William Devane as the unassuming, overly supportive father— much of The Grinder’s pilot’s funniest moments come from him. This thing’s not a guaranteed hit, but it’s a lot better than it looks.
One of last fall’s most anticipated new offerings, Gotham spent the duration of its first season going through some particularly rough growing pains. The Fox drama was caught between its sturdy procedural foundation and a (likely network or DC-mandated) desire to stuff in as many Batman-adjacent origin stories and references as possible, resulting in a consistently bumpy and occasionally lunkheaded 22 episodes with solid performances from Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Robin Lord Taylor, and especially Jada Pinkett Smith holding it all together. An optimistic view of Season 2 might suggest that with a year under its belt and fewer surprises to deal with, Gotham is primed for a raucous, compelling run. But considering the show has spent the summer adding even more recognizable characters to its comically large gallery to try to replace the massive hole left by Pinkett Smith’s Fish Mooney and McKenzie is blaming the fairly solid procedural stories for its Season 1 problems, it doesn’t look good.
BOB’S BURGERS STARRING H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Larry Murphy, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal. PREMIERES Sept. 22
Let me go out on a limb here—this is the most underrated comedy on TV right now. Overshadowed by the brashness of Family Guy and the irreverence of shows like Bojack Horseman, Bob’s Burgers is heading into its fifth season—fifth!—at its peak. Although, it’s hard to pinpoint this show’s peak because it’s so consistently good. The burger-flipping family, that is not so great at selling burgers, at the center of Bob’s Burgers is infinitely mine-able for laughs, from Tina’s awkward bouts with puberty to Linda’s always impromptu fits of singing to Bob’s overall ineptitude. Bob’s Burgers doesn’t rely on shock or big humor, its core characters have just been so well-written and built up over the past four seasons that you can laugh out of a sort of ironic acknowledgment, like how it’s never not funny when your clumsy friend trips and falls. Season five probably won’t change the formula in any way, but honestly, that’s a very good thing.
Photo: FOX
ROSEWOOD STARRING Morris Chestnut, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Gabrielle Dennis, Clancy Brown, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Lorraine Toussaint. PREMIERES Sept.23
What’s the only better name than Morris Chestnut? BEAUMONT ROSEWOOD, JR. That’s who Chestnut plays in Rosewood—Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr. (Jesus, even on the second go it’s astounding), a cooler than cool pathologist who solves all of Miami’s murders. He’s what you would get if you threw CSI, Dexter, and 2011 LeBron James into a blender. He says “May you rest,” to dead bodies before examining them. Dr. Beaumont Rosewood Jr. (I’m only saying his full name so much because he does) has all the dicks in South Beach in the palm of his hand, blown away by his pathological prowess, but the new girl in town—the hardened female detective, Annalise Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz)— isn’t so easily impressed, and with that we’ve got our partners-who-challenge-each-other-and-mighthook-up baseline for this procedural. If it sounds like something you’ve seen before, that’s because you probably have.
Photo: Jeff Daly/FOX
FALL TV PREVIEW / 22
BROOKLYN NINE-NINE STARRING Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Bill Hader. PREMIERES Sept.27
Photo:Eddy Chen/FOX
The best sitcoms offer comfort. You love watching the family, either biological or workplace, interact, bump heads, and be quirky. As it heads into its third season, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has earned its reliability badge. Andy Samberg has assembled a pretty respectable cast of lovable weirdos in a show that leans more on cast interaction than it does actual, believable high stakes police work. Andre Braugher, in particular, is the Emmy-worthy
MVP as the taciturn, monotone, commanding but increasingly goofy Captain Holt. And Terry Crews is always welcome in anything aspiring to be a comedy. Sometimes the episodes fly by a little too quickly, but right now the show is one season away from achieving tenure as a comfortable FOX staple. Get hip already, if you haven’t. Your TV diet has room for it. Returning Shows to Check Up On: Sleepy Hollow Returning Shows You Can Continue to Ignore: Family Guy, Bones, The Simpsons
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FX & FXX
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YOU’RE THE WORST STARRING Chris Geere, Aya Cash, Desmin Borges, Kether Donohue. PREMIERES Sept. 9
Tired of dated rom-coms with courtships that bear no resemblance to real life and characters who behave in stock gender archetypes? Get acquainted with You’re the Worst, one of the best rom-coms/ sitcoms/overall half-hours on TV where the romance and saccharine moments are earned by how hard-won they are: the two leads are easily the most fucked up romantic foils you’ve seen on the small screen. They’re deathly afraid of commitment and vulnerability, masking deep-seated insecurities with a thick veneer of snark and general foul behavior that lends the show most of its laughs. But whether you share their fears or not, there’s truth to the lack of cute in their meet-cute. The new season finds them living together a whole year before they were probably actually ready for it, with a few reported narrative surprises due around the halfway mark. The fact that a second season even exists is a happy miracle. Watch this damn show so we can get at least three or four more.
Photo: Prashant Gupta/FX
THE BASTARD EXECUTIONER STARRING Lee Jones, Stephen Moyer, Matthieu Charneau, Katey Sagal, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Kurt Sutter. PREMIERES Sept. 15
Photo: Ollie Upton/FX
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Has Kurt Sutter squandered our trust? Last year he brought his hit series Sons of Anarchy,often underrated but on the tail end of a sharp dip in quality, to a close with the weakest season yet. Worse than the meandering plots and exceedingly gratuitous violence, was the feeling that there was a good story within—he’d just amassed too much power for anyone to step in and check him. With ratings like Sons achieved, dude easily found himself able to expand each episode’s running time as he saw fit, bloating the show when tight storytelling would’ve served better. The Bastard Executioner’s medieval setting is new territory for him, sure, but we know what to expect and after seven seasons of Sons, Sutter’s graphic brand of storytelling may be too exhausted to willingly re-embark on again so soon. But to write the series off because of its predecessor’s descent into self-parody is to ignore the A+ work he put into its beginning. Kurt Sutter is still a worthwhile storyteller. The titular bastard will probably orchestrate many executions. The violence will be cringeworthy. But hopefully the art will be worth it.
FARGO STARRING Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Ted Danson, Patrick Wilson, Jean Smart, Nick Offerman, Brad Garrett, Kieran Culkin. PREMIERES Sept. 29
Tuck your one-and-done anthology crime series in: Fargo killed the game last year. Now it’s back, with a prequel that fills in the blanks regarding a past case alluded to in Season 1. The players are all new—with the exception of Patrick Wilson’s Lou Solverson, a younger version of David Carradine’s character from season one—but the dark humor, grisly murders, and distinct midwest dialect are all intact. While Season 1 was insular, Season 2 plans to go big: warring crime families, a couple who slowly gets drawn into the middle, guest star Ted Danson, and apparently, Richard Nixon. This year True Detective shit the bed in following a critically acclaimed debut, but for now smart money says Fargo will deliver. It’s already clearly a vastly different affair than the much more intimate debut season, it’s quite possible that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew here. With a larger story, it’s free to go wherever. Let’s just hope someone in this new cast came with the same flair that Billy Bob Thornton did.
Photo: Ray Mickshaw/FX
THE LEAGUE STARRING Mark Duplass, Nick Kroll, Stephen Rannazzisi, Paul Scheer, Jon Lajoie, Katie Aselton. PREMIERES Sept. 9
For the last seven years The League has been a trusty staple of fall television. You might not know the first thing about football—you don’t need to. All that matters is that fantasy football is the one and only thing the five savages who make up the eponymous League care about; in all other aspects of life they might be bigger sociopaths than Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine. And for six seasons the show has delivered in presenting every heinous thing these “friends” will do to each other to win the title, and to everyone around them in service of it. Football is forever but in TV, all things must come to an end. The League is about to reach its 100 yards, but not before one more season of insta-classic catchphrases, gross out humor and the most immature adult behavior.
Photo: Chris Large/FX
FALL TV PREVIEW / 26
AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL STARRING Lady Gaga, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Chloë Sevigny, Denis O’Hare, Cheyenne Jackson, Evan Peters, Finn Wittrock, Max Greenfield, Emma Roberts, Richard T. Jones, Lily Rabe, Naomi Campbell, Mädchen Amick, Darren Criss. PREMIERES Oct. 7
Photo: Entertainment Weekly
Here we go again, another season of Ryan Murphy fueled horror fantasy, this time around sans the HBIC Jessica Lange. Murphy’s checking his core cast of players (Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Kathy Bates,etc.) into a horror filled hotel. Murphy’s rounded out his usual players with actors like Matt Bomer, models like Naomi Campbell and one little known pop star, Lady Gaga. While
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details are scarce, Murphy has said that this season will skew more horror than previous seasons with Gaga heading as the bisexual hotel owner— having affairs with Angela Basset and Bomer. So, can we expect a sexually fluid, blood spattered, LA hotel, musical extravaganza from Hotel? If that’s the case, that’s gotta be Murphy’s career tour de force.
THE CW
FALL TV PREVIEW / 28
CRAZY EX- GIRLFRIEND STARRING Rachel Bloom, Santino Fontana, Donna Lynne Champlin, Vincent Rodriguez III, Vella Lovell, Pete Gardner. PREMIERES Oct. 19
It’s a questionable premise: A woman on her way up the career ladder at her law firm drops everything and moves across the country from New York to West Covina, Calif. (the most middle-of-nowhere place in Los Angeles County), after finding out that an ex-boyfriend who dumped her 10 years ago will be moving out there. Why, you ask? As its title suggests, our protagonist Rebecca Bunch is c-c-ccrazy, and she believes that this ex, Josh, is truly the one (he hardly has an idea). Okay, so wait, this is a show about a woman putting a man over her career? Not only that, but a man who doesn’t love her back? Sus, gross, eww, right? Except it’s weirdly endearing. It’s conflicting, but the show was created by two women, Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom (who plays Rebecca), plus it’s on the female-friendly The CW, so we have plenty of faith. Did we mention that this is also a MUSICAL?
Photo: Eddy Chen/The CW
THE FLASH STARRING Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Victor Garber, Tom Cavanaugh. PREMIERES Oct. 6
Photo: Diyah Pera/The CW
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If you’re a Flash fan, you already know what to expect from season two--the first season finale foreshadowed everything for you. In an effort to defeat the Reverse Flash and save his mom from his wrath, Barry Allen sped back in time through a wormhole, revealing to him and viewers glimpses of the future. Caitlin Snow becomes Killer Frost? Check. Cisco Ramon begins developing powers that turn him into Vibe? Yup. Barry Allen gets locked up? Looks like it; he did flirt with the idea of breaking his dad out of jail. More importantly, a Jay Garrick storyline? If his helmet that launched through the hole is any indication, there’s a strong possibility. After all, producers did confirm The Flash would be exploring multiple timelines going forward. Literally anything in the entire Flash lore is fair game, and that’s got to have fanboys drooling.
IZOMBIE STARRING Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley. PREMIERES Oct. 6
Missing Veronica Mars? We all are, but fret not, for Rob Thomas is here with a damn good consolation. iZombie has the whipsmart, witty heroine, the infectious, bantering dialog and noir-ish intrigue to more than maintain the Veronica-sized hole in our hearts. You may have slept on it, so a recap: Liv Moore finds her world turned upside down when she suddenly joins the ranks of the living dead. There’s no wallowing in in the transformation, though. When we meet her, she’s already re-adjusted, working in a morgue for easy access to brains, the digestion of which gives her random flashes to the former person’s life. It’s a tool she uses to help the police solve murders, only under the guise of having psychic visions. Meanwhile fellow members of the zombified community are up to no good, but in criminally horrifying ways and less slow-strut clamoring for brains. Meanwhile Liv takes on the character traits of each victim she eats, an excuse for her to use the new perspective as reflection on her undead life. Drama, heart, laughs, horror...it’s basically the full package.
Photo: Diyah Pera/The CW
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES STARRING Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Kat Graham, Candice Accola, Zach Roerig, Matthew Davis. PREMIERES Sept. 27
For something like four years, The Vampire Diaries was one of if not the most underrated show on TV. Placement on the overall highly underrated network, The CW, as well as a debut timed during the height of Twilight mania, led most to write the show off as more disposable supernatural YA fare for tween girls. Welp, apparently tween girls have great taste, because Vampire Diaries very quickly went from intriguing guilty pleasure to bonafide must-watch TV. It recalls Buffy, with its fearless heroine, assorted love triangles and familial gang of supernaturally affected friends, and it churns through story arcs and bad guys with a pacing unseen since 24. But now that fearless heroine is gone, and her exit may provide the stimulus the show’s desperately needed lately. What tension unfolds when the moral center holding all of these superhuman people together is suddenly removed from the action? In theory it seemed like Nina Dobrev’s exit spelled end of series. Who would’ve thought it would lead instead to a narrative powder keg?
Photo: Tina Rowden/The CW
FALL TV PREVIEW / 30
ARROW STARRING Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Paul Blackthorne, Emily Bett Rickards, Neal McDonough. PREMIERES Oct. 7
The end of season three saw Oliver Queen riding into the sunset with Felicity Smoak, in a convertible and all, after Ollie turned over Ra’s al Ghul duties to Malcolm Merlyn and hung up his hood as The Arrow. But, of course, it can’t be over. As much as Team Arrow--Diggle, Black Canary, Speedy--can hold it down in Starling City, another evil will bring Queen back. Who is it this time? Well, producers aren’t going to waste an opportunity with Neal McDonough on just anyone. In season four, he’s coming in as famed supervillain Damien Dahrk, who will be introduced as the leader of crime syndicate H.I.V.E. It’s clear what we can expect from Dahrk--pure evil--but what about Ollie? As Comic Con revealed, Queen’s getting a new suit, meaning he’ll finally be embracing his comic book identity as Green Arrow. Couple that badass transformation with the inevitable Legends of Tomorrow crossover episodes that are bound to happen, and you know that shit’s about to get extremely real.
Photo: JSquared Photography/The CW
JANE THE VIRGIN STARRING Gina Rodriguez, Andrea Navedo, Yael Grobglas, Justin Baldoni. PREMIERES Oct. 19
Photo: Patrick Wymore/The CW
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A virgin is accidentally artificially inseminated by her former crush’s sample and by his alcoholic doctor sister is a plot point that telenovelas are made of. The CW’s Jane the Virgin transcends its soapy origins and has become one of the best shows on television, following Jane (Gina Rodriguez) on her weird path to motherhood with the everlasting support of her mother and abuela. While it elevates the telenovela, it embraces it as well, giving Jane plenty of romantic drama. And did I mention there’s also an insane plastic surgery based crime ring that murders a lot of people? In Season 2, we can expect a massive fallout emotionally for Jane, and more than likely, a whole new set of charming problems. Plus, Britney Spears will be guest starring!
Returning Shows to Check Up On: Supernatural, The Originals Returning Shows You Can Continue to Ignore: America’s Next Top Model, Reign
AMC INTO THE BADLANDS STARRING Daniel Wu, Emily Beecham, Oliver Stark, Sarah Bolger, Orla Brady. PREMIERES Nov. 15
Into the confused fray of AMC comes Into the Badlands, a hyper-stylized martial arts show loosely based on the classic Chinese saga, Journey to the West. Judging from the trailer released at ComicCon (because screeners for the show are not yet available), it looks like the show will follow a warrior named Sunny and a boy he finds trapped in a suitcase during his travels. Obviously it’s hard to judge Into the Badlands on its story as of now—while the premise doesn’t sounds especially illuminating, made-up feudal lands are always ripe for drama. On a visual level though, Badlands looks amazing. The color palette is wide and experimental, expertly oversaturated. It almost looks animated, which breathes life into the fantasy—by giving the Badlands its own distinct look, the show has already established a real sense of place. Badlands is an interesting risk, and you know what they say about risks—they often end up being mighty rewarding.
Photo:James Dimmock/AMC
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THE WALKING DEAD STARRING Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Lennie James. PREMIERES Sept. 9
Photo: Gene Page/AMC
The Walking Dead is a strange beast. It’s reached the level of small-screen blockbuster where you can bet it’s going ten seasons strong at the very least. As such, in an effort to stay fresh for as long as possible, it basically has the freedom to reinvent itself with every eight episode half-season cycle. Where will Rick and the gang find themselves this year? Against what enemy? In what type of setting? One thing’s for sure: the lesson learned will be that humans are the real monsters. Even in the face of reinvention, there is familiarity. Which is exactly why the back half of season five is the freshest, most fun the show has been since…I honestly don’t know when, maybe ever. If there’s one cumulative factor that remains through each mid-season phase, it’s the increasing savagery within the group, especially Rick, as they become at peace with the idea of their lives never being peaceful or nonviolent ever again. Placing them in an idyllic, too-good-to-be-true-but-it-reallyis, suburban safe-zone bubble just as they’ve
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made pace with being savages 4 lyfe? Genius. Now, the threat is from within. The danger is in Rick’s inherent paranoia and seen-it-all holier than thou attitude. Of course, this being Walking Dead, narrative consistency is just as fleeting as the new homes the gang find themselves in. But damn if it wasn’t downright fun watching Rick and Carol plot amidst housewarmings and the like. Who would have ever thought a wet blanket like Rick, played by a slightly less damp blanket like Andrew Lincoln, could be capable of that hilariously thrilling and almost frightening display of madness in the season’s penultimate episode? Next season may be a case of one step forward, two back, but with Lennie James back in the fray as Morgan, excitement is high even for the skeptics. If they maintain the new energy and intrigue the Alexandria setting gave (don’t forget about the Wolves either, the lurking psychos Morgan met in the finale) then maybe Walking Dead will finally be worthy of all the commercial acclaim it receives.
COMEDY CENTRAL
FALL TV PREVIEW / 34
NATHAN FOR YOU STARRING Nathan Fielder. PREMIERES Sept. 15
Comedy Central has quickly become a powerhouse of programming: Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, Workaholics—but just underneath that murderer’s row of critical darlings is an awkward, underrated beast. Nathan For You is a pseudo reality show starring Nathan Fielder as a business strategist who “helps” struggling companies. Over two seasons, he’s convinced a realtor to advertise their properties as “ghost-free;” he’s suggested that a liquor store owner let underage teens put alcohol on lay-away until they’re legally allowed to drink. None of Fielder’s strategies are good, but the fun is in watching him drolly pitch the ideas to business owners, and then passive aggressively push back when they balk at him. Nathan For You makes its money by concentrating on those awkward interactions, and Fielder always commits. Expect the third season to be more of the same—there will always be businesses out there for Fielder to ruin by suggesting they come out in support of ISIS, or something like that.
Photo: Comedy Central
MOONBEAM CITY STARRING Elizabeth Banks, Rob Lowe, Kate Mara, Will Forte. PREMIERES Sept. 16
Photo: Comedy Central
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Like Miami Vice? The 1980s one, not the one starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Velcoro. Then you’ll be all in on Moonbeam City—an animated parody of 1980s cop shows voiced by 80s (and current) never aging heartthrob Rob Lowe, as Dazzle Novak, a thirsty detective who heads up the Moonbeam City PD. He gets into it with his boss, Chief Pizzaz Miller (Elizabeth Banks) and his rival Rad Cunningham (what a name!) so he may occasionally need to do work. Basically, Moonbeam City is like what an animated True Detective could be like, so we’re all in.
THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH STARRING Trevor Noah. PREMIERES Sept. 28
Photo: Comedy Central
By the time Jon Stewart announced he was leaving The Daily Show all of the obvious replacements were already gone. This may have been a challenge at first, but it’s allowed The Daily Show to truly move forward into a new era after the gawd Jon Stewart made it into an institution. Trevor Noah won’t make his debut until Sept. 28, but we’ve been cued into a few of his planned changes. Obviously, the point of view will change given the passing of the torch from a 52-year-old New Jersey Jew to a 31-year-old biracial man from
South Africa. But most intriguing is Noah’s adjustments to the Internet news cycle. At the TCAs Noah said: “The Daily Show was based on an emerging 24 hour news cycle, that’s everything it was. Now you look at news and it’s changed.” Expecting instant success is too much to ask for from the relatively young comedian. But we should be patient and remain hopeful as he gets comfortable behind the desk.
Returning Shows to Check Up On: South Park FALL TV PREVIEW / 36
SHOWTIME STARZ HBO
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HOMELAND ON Showtime STARRING Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Rupert Friend, F. Murray Abraham, Sebastian Koch, Miranda Otto, Alexander Fehling, Sarah Sokolovic. PREMIERES Oct. 4
Homeland is not a good show. This has been readily apparent since Nicholas Brody was kept alive far too long purely for the sake of maintaining his ill-advised romance with Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes). But you know what? I still fucking watch. I’m out here four seasons deep and ready to drop into the fifth because Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) are perfect characters. But now homeboy Peter Quinn has been roped into another superfluous romance. NOTHING IS SACRED. With its flawed past out of the way, let’s look forward to Homeland’s flawed future via the first season five trailer. Carrie is a private citizen, which we know won’t last, serving as head of security for a German philanthropist. Meanwhile, homeboy Quinn is carrying out killings with such apparent regularity that he’s taking his orders from a PO box. And that I’m very much here for because I’m a sucker. Just miss me with the “plot twist” of Carrie returning to the CIA or revealing she never really left after all.
Photo: Stephan Rabold/Showtime
THE AFFAIR ON Showtime STARRING Dominic West, Ruth Wilson, Maura Tierney, Joshua Jackson. PREMIERES Oct. 4
Showtime’s drama The Affair premiered last year with an enticing, if risky, premise, with each episode telling the same story from two different perspectives. There was Dominic West’s Noah, married to Helen (Maura Tierney). And then there was Ruth Wilson’s Alison, married to Cole (Joshua Jackson) and having an affair, as the title references, with Noah. The split perspectives between Noah and Alison explored how people tend to remember things differently, how we construct our memories based on our own desires and emotions. Season 2 promises to expand the world of The Affair so that we aren’t stuck only in Noah and Alison’s points of view. Introducing additional viewpoints could save The Affair by pumping the show with more life, but it also could make it too complicated, leaving viewers not only confused by what to believe but so exhausted that we don’t even care.
Photo: Mark Schafer/Showtime FALL TV PREVIEW / 38
ASH VS. EVIL DEAD ON Starz STARRING Bruce Campbell, Jill Marie Jones, Ray Santiago, Dana Delorenzo, Lucy Lawless. PREMIERES Oct. 31
Cult horror franchise Evil Dead is practically required viewing for anyone claiming to be a proper horror fan. Blending wicked humor with loads of gore and ultraviolence, the vehicle that made Bruce Campbell a fan favorite is not to be trifled with. Word of a renewed push into that series (which kicked off in 2013 with the Evil Dead reboot) makes plans for the ten-episode Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead a welcome treat. The new series involves Ash once again, but instead of the leaner man of the old films, we’ve got an older, possibly more irresponsible guy who does what he has to do: murder everything moving. It plays like an extended piece of B-movie mayhem, with all of the red stuff and dark humor pushed front and center. What makes this series even more unique is that Ash now has a sidekick (Ray Santiago as Pablo Simon Bolivar) and others to help him along the way, although truthfully, it’s up to Ash to save the world.
Photo: Starz
FLESH AND BONE ON Starz STARRING Sarah Hay, Irina Dvorovenko, Sascha Radetsky, Marina Benedict, Tovah Feldshuh, Raychel Diane Weiner, Emily Tyra, Damon Herriman, Josh Helman. PREMIERES Nov. 8
Photo: Starz
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Remember Center Stage? From 2000? It’s about a group of young ballet dancers at the American Ballet Company, trying to make it in the dance world. It’s sweet, at times incredibly cheesy, and has one of the best end dance sequences. Is teen ballet not your thing? Do you need your ballet with some grit? Perhaps an anti-hero? Starz brings Flesh & Bone to the table, from Breaking Bad writer Moira Walley-Beckett, a miniseries focusing on Claire, a talented but troubled dancer who moves to New York City to join a ballet company. She has to both navigate the city, the ballet world and the Artistic Director of the company—a fraught relationship at absolute best. Featuring a mix of actors and real ballet dancers, Flesh & Bone promises to be Black Swan meets Center Stage. Don’t worry Center Stage’s nice guy alum, Charlie, makes a major recurring appearance.
THE LEFTOVERS ON HBO STARRING Lee Jones, Stephen Moyer, Matthieu Charneau, Katey Sagal, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Kurt Sutter. PREMIERES Sept. 15
Before True Detective Two polarized HBO fans, there was The Leftovers, last summer’s televised existential crisis. Some fans lauded ex-Lost creator Damon Lindelof doubling down on that show’s propensity to treat character first over plot, opting not to explain the central conceit and instead focusing on the broken lives as those who lost try to move on three years later, in often glacier-paced fashion. Others called the show meandering misery porn. Now it’s coming back, and with a plot overhaul (despite the pacing, the first season more or less fulfilled the source material from the book it’s based on). The Garvey family, led by patriarch Justin Theroux packs up and moves to a new town...where a total of zero departures actually occurred. Of course, trouble follows them. Lindelof has promised this season will be more focused, with a propulsive storyline. But will his attempts to appease instead of writing what he wants result in an ultimately messy season? His demeanor as of late suggests he’s the same salty guy hurt over the reaction to Lost’s series finale, which is to say, he’s going to make the show he damn well wants to. But this season is make-or-break.
Photo: HBO
PROJECT GREENLIGHT ON HBO STARRING Matt Damon, Ben Affleck. PREMIERES Sept. 13
In case you forgot that Affleck and Damon wrote Good Will Hunting and that Affleck has directed movies, the two are back with Project Greenlight, a (more classy) reality show about making a movie. Greenlight isn’t new, per se—this is technically the show’s fourth season, though it’s been ten years since the third season. It doesn’t look like much has changed in terms of the show’s approach in that ten-year gap though. Just like in past seasons, this eight-episode fourth season will follow a first-time director as he jumps over obstacle after obstacle while making a movie. There will be issues—all while Affleck and Damon linger in the background to lend their mentorship. “It’s the riskiest season we’ve ever done,” Affleck says in the trailer, which makes it sound less like filmmaking and more like climbing Mount Everest. But for anyone who likes to see the sausage get made, Greenlight should prove to be entertaining and illuminating, if a little overly dramatic.
Photo: HBO Returning Shows to Check Up On: Doll & Em
FALL TV PREVIEW / 40
THE MIXED BAG 41 / FALL TV PREVIEW
THE MINDY PROJECT ON Hulu. STARRING Mindy Kaling, Chris Messina, Ike Barinholtz. PREMIERES Sept. 15
After two rom com heavy seasons, where Mindy Lahiri was good at her job but bad at men, she finally found her dream guy packaged in the very fine Chris Messina (aka coworker Danny). Their relationship brought a whole new messiness to last season, full of work mishaps, deep lapses in communication and one incredibly sexy striptease. Said striptease may have been the contributing factor in the most divisive plot point—Mindy’s pregnancy. When Fox pulled the plug on Mindy, it seemed as if maybe she would simply get her happy ending. With Hulu picking up the next season, we’ll get to see more of the struggle between Mindy and Danny, their zany coworkers and an appearance by Joseph Gordon Levitt. Plus we’ll get to explore Mindy on another level of messiness—motherhood.
Photo: Autumn De Wilde/FOX
THE KNICK ON Cinemax. STARRING Clive Owen, Andre Holland, Jeremy Bobb, Juliet Rylance, Eve Hewson, Michael Angarano, Emily Kinney. PREMIERES Oct. 16
Not all film directors are cut out to work consistently in television. Steven Soderbergh though? He appears to be tailor-made for it. Soderbergh directed all 10 episodes of The Knick’s stylish first season of medical procedural horror, consistently producing mesmerizing compositions, gruesome, tense sequences in the 1900s-set operating room, and drawing out a top-shelf performance from the regularly misused Clive Owen. In Season 2, The Knick is reportedly set to be bicoastal, at least partially, with stories set in both New York City and San Francisco. If heroin binges and botched surgeries weren’t enough, the new season trailer suggests a trip to a quarantine zone, so things are still pretty chill on this show. And if you never caught Season 1, because Cinemax, you can now stream it in its entirely on HBO Go and HBO Now. Do that, soon.
Photo: Cinemax
FALL TV PREVIEW / 42
Don’t expect Aziz Ansari’s Netflix show, Master of None, to be Tom Haverford 2.0. Instead it’ll focus on Dev, played by Ansari, a fictionalized version of himself, a man in his 30s who really needs to get it together. He’s an actor in New York, who realizes that he’s finally an adult, and ready to settle down. But how to do that exactly, that’s the question? Ansari has mentioned 70s comedies like The Graduate and Shampoo as major inspiration for his own—a funnily serious, Woody Allen esque rumination on a man’s life and loves, full of big ideas and apparently many celebrity cameos—including Claire Danes? Will we get Danes’ infamous cry face? Let’s hope so. So say goodbye to Tom Haverford and welcome a new, more complex Aziz Ansari.
Photo: VHX
Since Six Feet Under’s Fisher family, has there been such a satisfying portrayal of a complicated family as Transparent’s Pfeffermans? The first season introduced us to the the Pfeffermans, a perfect portrait of upper-middle class LA family dysfunction. The three siblings (Sarah, Josh, Ali) are all a mess—desperately searching for human connection through sex, drugs and music, just to try to keep afloat. At their center is patriarch Mort (an incredible Jeffrey Tambor) who is undergoing the most difficult transformation of all, becoming a woman. Mort’s transition to becoming Moira sends the family (including ex-wife Shelly) into upheaval with the family dealing with their own messes in addition to handling the transition. The end of the first season put everyone into new relationships, revealed family secrets and paved the groundwork for season two which promises babies, unexpected pairings and more Pfefferman drama.
Photo: Beth Dubber/Amazon
43 / FALL TV PREVIEW
If you haven’t heard about Amazon’s Man in the High Castle yet, prime yourself because by the end of the year, it’s going to be one of the Internet’s favs. Based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, High Castle brings us one of the best concepts for a contemporary show: an alternate version of 1962 where the Axis powers triumphed in World War II and subsequently split up portions of the U.S., and where an underground American resistance is beginning to stir. The Ridley Scott-produced, Frank Spotnitz-led series does a fantastic job of realizing its retelling of history, particularly from a technical standpoint. The pilot’s rendering of both the Japanese-occupied San Francisco and German-occupied New York presented a fascinating mash-up of cultures and architecture that helps make this version of the 60s feel frustratingly foreign and only occasionally familiar. Where it stumbles, unfortunately, is in the casting. You’ll recognize many of the key faces here— Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, and Rufus Sewell have all been in at least one thing you’ve seen—but their performances don’t quite stack up with the intrigue and scope of the premise. No one is actively bad, but it’s sort of like if Lost was initially filled with people of the 2004 Ian Somerhalder variety (he’s much better now, chill). Photo:Amazon
PLEASE LIKE ME ON Pivot STARRING Josh Thomas, Debra Lawrence, Davic Roberts, Caitlin Stasey PREMIERES Sept. 23
It’s a solid assumption that you’ve been sleeping on this Pivot (Yes, that’s a network) gem. The Australian series focuses around Josh, a supremely awkward and shy guy, whose girlfriend breaks up with him because he’s gay and hasn’t full realized it yet. On top of dealing with his sexuality, his mother attempts suicide and he has to care for her. Despite the heavy nature of the show, Please Like Me is a funny and nuanced look at sexuality and mental health. Season three has Josh navigating a potential relationship, exploring his relationship with his father more and even if it doesn’t sound like it—a lot of fun.
Photo: Giovanni Lovisetto/Pivot
FALL TV PREVIEW / 44
MANHATTAN ON WGN STARRING Rachel Brosnahan, Michael Chemus, Christopher Denham, Alexia Fast, Katja Herbers, John Benjamin Hickey, Harry Lloyd, Daniel Stern, Olivia Williams, Ashley Zukerman, William Petersen, Nathaniel Augustson. PREMIERES Sept. 22
Photo: WGN America
Seriously, this is one of the best shows on all of television and we just don’t talk about it enough because it airs on the home of Bozo the Clown and Chicago Cubs games. If you’ve seen Manhattan (and chances are you haven’t), the quick and dirty summary is that it’s a period drama that loosely follows the events of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1943, where a small group of scientists are racing to develop potential defense materials. But while the show’s definitely interested in the psychological and long-lasting effects of building a nuclear weapon, it’s also invested in the miniature community in Los Alamos, including not just the scientists but their families as well. Likewise, Manhattan is of course a period piece that tells stories relevant to the war-torn early 40s—perhaps most notably the rampant racism and sexism—but truly is more concerned with how these people were shaped by the extraordinary circumstances of their work. Wonderfully stylized and sharply written, Manhattan turned in one of the better first seasons in recent memory. Information about Season 2 is thankfully scant, but what we do know is that the trailer looks great. You have until October to catch up—do that.
Nick Jonas shirtless, NEED WE SAY MORE!?!? Okay, we can say more. Kingdom is a show that seemingly has everything—MMA fighting, family drama and the trouble of favoring one child to carry on one’s legacy (Hi, Empire!), the aforementioned shirtless Jonas brother playing a gay fighter, and lots and lots of sex and violence. Whether or not all that makes Kingdom a good show—that’s still up for debate. The first season of this DirecTV tent pole proved that it could deliver loads of drama and emotion, even if it leaned on well-worn tropes of past family dramas and movies/ shows set in the world of boxing. Kingdom’s network (or lack thereof) has seriously held it back from finding its own audience—and that’ll probably remain the case for season two—but as far as shows that deal in high drama above all else go, it probably deserves a shot at the title. And for anyone already obsessed with MMA, you’re messing up if you’re also not up on this show.
Photo: DirecTV
45 / FALL TV PREVIEW
Jason Reitman’s Casual literally brings to life one of the more absurd lines in this past season of True Detective: “Everything is fucking.” According to this show, that’s the case. Recently divorced, Valerie and her daughter, Laura, live with Valerie’s brother, Alex—a dating app creator. Alex is persistent that Valerie get over her divorce by fucking someone else, because that’s what he’s seemingly doing. The pilot is filled to the brim with awkward sexual and dating encounters from all family members and feels cloyingly insistent on proving how casual their attitudes are about sex, dating and parenting. Hopefully, beyond the pilot promises more for the cast, especially the always terrific Michaela Watkins, but as of now, it’d be advisable to just go on a Tinder date if you are wanting to watch something Casual.
Photo:Hulu
If you read The Face on the Milk Carton as a kid, chances are you’ll love Finding Carter. Loosely based on the book, Carter is a totally normal teenager, living with her single mom when she finds out that her mom is actually her abducter. She’s thrown into living with a family she doesn’t know at all— meeting her birth mother and father, a twin sister and a younger brother not to mention having to navigate an entirely different social scene. Oh and her “mom” is still on the run. While the end of last season at first seemed like the drama had died down for Carter and co., that was clearly just a joke because by finale’s end, there was death, paternity and custody revelations and plenty of teen angst. Basically, the drama is just getting started.
Photo: Patrick Cummings/MTV
FALL TV PREVIEW / 46
Photo: BBC The good: Peter Capaldi made for a wonderful Doctor, bringing some crusty edge to a character that had, frankly, become too Tumblr friendly by the end of Matt Smith’s run. The bad: Jenna Coleman’s Clara took a familiar and ultimately ineffective journey last season that involved choosing between the Doctor and another man. The ugly: Showrunner Steven Moffat, he who can’t quite understand why fans might want a non-white, non-dude in the titular role, is still here. For a production that’s so willing to swap out its lead performers and characters, it’s more than a little frustrating that a maligned figure like Moffat keeps his job, but with no changes at the top,
47 / FALL TV PREVIEW
we expect a lot more of the same from Britain’s greatest export—retread villains, stupendously convoluted serialized stories that are, by the end of the season, waved away in a moment’s worth of timey-wimey nonsense, and unfortunately marginalized companions. *Checks Wikipedia* Oh, female Master Missy and the Daleks are in the first two episodes? I’m shocked. The problem with Moffat era Who is that it’s always Just Good Enough to keep us entertained, without ever really consistently reaching the kind of highs that occurred in the Russell T. Davies/David Tennant run. In fact, if previous patterns hold, we might want to expect an even bumpier season this year.