2017 Upfronts Preview Pt 2: The Pilots

This is the second part in my preview of upfronts, the annual event in May when broadcast networks present their upcoming schedules to advertisers, trying to hype up their new shows so companies are enticed to buy ad time during the shows.

For the uninitiated, pilot season is the late-Winter-to-Spring scramble when broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CW) sift through their pilots (first episode) to decide which are good enough to order more episodes of. There’s usually a glut of pilots to go through (I got the below pilots from The Hollywood Reporter’s annual list), the vast majority of which are never seen by the public. In some cases, pilots get retooled and pushed for next year for the same/different network.

Based on the descriptions, cast, and crew of the pilots, here are the pilots that sound intriguing or best-fitting for their respective networks. Of course, simply judging by the description, cast, and crew without watching the actual pilot is going into this semi-blind, but that’s not enough to hinder my playing backseat executive.

In part 1 of the Upfronts preview, I looked at the chances of this season’s shows being renewed/cancelled.
In the next posts, I’ll go network-by-network to see how I’d schedule each of them for the upcoming television season.

**means picked up for series order**

ABC
Comedy
•Libby and Malcolm
Logline: “A blended-family show about two polar-opposite political pundits (Felicity Huffman, Courtney B. Vance) who fall in love despite all odds and form an insta-family as well as a work partnership.”
Cast: Felicity Huffman, Courtney B. Vance
Only for the leads

Drama
**Inhumans**
Logline: “Will explore the never-before-told epic adventure of Black Bolt and the royal family” (Marvel comic book adaptation)

**Ten Days in the Valley**
Logline: “Centers on Jane Sadler (Kyra Sedgwick), an overworked television producer and single mother dealing with a fractious separation. When her young daughter goes missing in the middle of the night, Jane’s world — and her controversial police series — implodes. Life imitates art: Everything’s a mystery, everyone has a secret and no one can be trusted.”

•Untitled Marc Cherry
Logline: “Ruby Adair, the sheriff of colorful small town Oxblood, Ky., finds her red state outlook challenged when a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent is sent to help her solve a horrific crime. Together they form an uneasy alliance as Ruby takes the agent behind the lace curtains of this southern gothic community to meet an assortment of bizarre characters, each with a secret of their own.”

•The Gospel of Kevin
Logline: “A light one hour about Kevin, a down-on-his-luck man who is tasked by God with a mission to save the world.”
Cast: Jason Ritter, Cristela Alonzo, JoAnna Garcia Swisher
Crew: W/EP Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters (Agent Carter)

CBS
Comedy
•9J, 9K, and 9L
Logline: “A family comedy inspired by a time in Mark Feuerstein’s adult life when he lived in apartment 9K in the building he grew up in, sandwiched between his parents’ apartment, 9J, and his brother’s, sister-in-law’s and their baby’s apartment, 9L, and his attempts to set boundaries with his intrusive but well-meaning family.”
So, Everybody Loves Raymond

**Young Sheldon**
Logline: “The series follows The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper at the age of 9, living with his family in East Texas and going to high school.”

Drama
•Instinct
Logline: “A former CIA operative (The Good Wife’s Alan Cumming) who has since built a ‘normal’ life as a gifted professor and writer is pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose. Based on the soon-to-be-published James Patterson book.”
Cast: Alan Cumming, Khandi Alexander, Naveen Andrews, Daniel Ings
Only for the cast

•Mission Control
Logline: “The next generation of NASA astronauts and scientists juggle both their personal and professional lives during a critical mission with no margin for error.”
Cast: David Giuntoli, Poppy Montgomery, Peyton List (2nd position to The CW’s Frequency)

•S.W.A.T.
Logline: “A locally born and bred S.W.A.T. lieutenant is torn between loyalty to the streets and duty to his fellow officers when he’s tasked to run a highly trained unit that is the last stop for solving crimes in Los Angeles. Inspired by the film of the same name.”
Combines two staples of CBS: Shemar Moore and military-themed shows with a 4-lettered-title, very on-brand

•Untitled Navy SEALs
Logline: “Follows the lives of the elite Navy SEALs as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous, high stakes missions the country can ask.”
Cast: David Boreanaz, Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest)
A military procedural starring someone who spent the last 12 seasons starring in a criminal procedural? This is CBS’s bread and butter.

CW
•Black Lightning
Logline: “Jefferson Pierce (Hart of Dixie’s Cress Williams) made his choice: he hung up the suit and his secret identity years ago, but with a daughter hell-bent on justice and a star student being recruited by a local gang, he’ll be pulled back into the fight as the wanted vigilante and DC legend — Black Lightning.”
4 DC shows is arguably enough for the CW (especially with ratings for all of them dropping this season). Still, CW may pick this one up just to continue fostering a positive relationship with EP Greg Berlanti (behind half of the CW’s schedule).

•Life Sentence
Logline: “When a young woman (Pretty Little Liars’ Lucy Hale) diagnosed with terminal cancer finds out that she’s not dying after all, she has to learn to live with the choices she made when she decided to ‘live like she was dying.'”
Word on the street is the CW is looking to balance the gender skew on its network now that it’s known as a comic book male-skewing network. With The Vampire Diaries ending, scheduling a show lead by Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale could help counter the notion that the CW now exclusively caters to males 15-40.

•Searchers
Logline: “The action-adventure drama follows a group of unlikely heroes who find themselves on the journey of a lifetime. Ten years after the death of their parents, a pragmatic brother and free-spirited sister are forced to team when they learn that their mother’s terrifying and bizarre stories may be a road map to discovering the great legends, myths and unexplainable mysteries of the world.”

FOX
Comedy
•Type-A
Logline: “Based on the Aaron James book Assholes: A Theory, the office comedy revolves around a group of consultants who are hand-picked to do the dirty work most professionals can’t handle including layoffs, downsizing and generally delivering horrible news. To everyone else, they’re the enemy but to each other, they’re family.”
Cast: Eva Longoria, Ken Marino, Kyle Bornheimer, Steve Harris, Andy Richter, Dulce Sloan
Half-decent concept + decent cast

Drama
**Orville**
Logline: “The hourlong dramedy is set 300 years in the future and follows the adventures of the Orville, an exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar fleet. Facing cosmic challenges from without and within, the motley crew of space explorers will “boldly go where no comedic drama has gone before.”
Cast: Seth MacFarlane

•Untitled Marvel (live-action X-Men)
Logline: “Revolves around two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive.”
Do we need another X-Men TV show when FX’s Legion has set the bar too damn high for any concurrent X-Men show? No. Should FOX have long ago taken advantage of its parent company owning the rights to X-Men? Yes.

NBC
Comedy
•The Sackett Sisters
Logline: “Revolves around the Sackett family, who is reunited when two estranged sisters perform an act of public heroism and are forced to navigate the aftermath together.”
Cast: Casey Wilson, Busy Philipps, Bradley Whitford
Team: W/EP Luke Del Tredici (30 Rock); EP Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, David Miner
Casey Wilson? Busy Philipps? Tina Fey? I’ll give it a shot

•Where I’m From
Logline: “Based on Kang’s life, the comedy explores what it’s like to grow up as the only girl in the only mixed-race family in the suburbs of Philadelphia, dealing with real-world issues like race and gender while never losing focus of her life goal: to become a Laker Girl like her idol, Paula Abdul.”
Just out there enough it might work in the vein of The Goldbergs; Fresh off the Boat

**Will and Grace**
Logline: “A revival of the long-running comedy series.”

Drama
•Shelter
Logline: “A real time ‘extreme event’ medical series that follows the nurses and doctors of an understaffed Brooklyn hospital that becomes the borough’s last viable trauma center after a catastrophic hurricane wreaks havoc on the city. On a holiday weekend with few doctors on call, the medical staff will be pushed to make the most difficult life-and-death choices as they work to save their patients and themselves.”
Sounds like something a cable channel would try; so long as the writing is good (it’s on a broadcast net, so it probably won’t be)

2016 Upfronts Preview Pt 1: The Pilots

This is the first part in my preview of upfronts, the annual event in May when broadcast TV networks present their upcoming television schedules to advertisers in NYC in hopes of creating interest in new/returning shows so companies will buy airtime during these shows for commercials.

For the uninitiated, pilot season is the late-Winter-to-Spring scramble when broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CW) sift through their pilots (first episode) to decide which ones are good enough that it’s worth ordering more episodes of. There’s usually a glut of pilots to go through (I got the below pilots from The Hollywood Reporter’s annual list), the vast majority of which are never seen by the public. In a few cases, pilots get retooled and pushed for next year for the same or different network.

Based on the descriptions, cast, and crew of the pilots under consideration, here are the pilots that sound intriguing or fitting their respective networks. OF COURSE just judging by the descriptions, cast, and crew without seeing the actual pilot is going into this process semi-blind. Who would’ve thought four seasons ago that a contemporary prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho would still be such a delight to watch four years in.

But, being the TV junkie that I am, here are my thoughts on the pilots.

**means picked up for series order**

ABC
Comedy
•Downward Dog
“Based on the web series of the same name, centers on a woman, Nan (Allison Tolman) and her dog. The twist is that it features a Modern Family-style confessional device — for the dog.”
This sounds real fucking not good, but dammit who am I to turn down more screentime for Allison Tolman (Molly Solverson from season 1 of Fargo).

•Hail Mary
Logline: A young small-town mayor named Mary Wolf (Happy Endings’ Casey Wilson) has dysfunctional siblings, a dying father, disgruntled citizens, a nearly bankrupt town and the mafia breathing down her neck. Only a miracle can help her — so she fakes one. Based on the Austrian Broadcasting Corp. series Braunschlag, created by David Schalko.
Even shows starring Casey Wilson that aren’t entirely successful are still semi-enjoyable (see: NBC’s Marry Me from last year). Also, this one has Retta from Parks & Rec, which I’m hoping plays the role of the mob. This could work.

•Pearl
Logline: When a larger-than-life family matriarch finds out she has cancer, she becomes intent on controlling and orchestrating every aspect of her family’s life before she dies.
Cast: Candice Bergen, Zachary Knighton (Happy Endings), Kathleen Rose Perkins (Episodes)
Candice Bergan and Kathleen Rose Perkins (who is enjoyable in Showtime’s Episodes). Sure, I’ll give it a shot.

•The Second Fattest Housewife in Westport
Logline: A family comedy narrated by Katie, a strong-willed mother raising her flawed family in a wealthy town filled with “perfect” wives and their “perfect” offspring.
Only for the name

Drama
•Conviction
Logline: Tells the story of Carter Morrison (Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell), the brilliant but ne’er-do-well daughter of a former president, who is blackmailed into taking a job as the head of Los Angeles’ newly created Conviction Integrity Unit. She, along with her team of lawyers, investigators and forensic experts, work together to examine cases where there’s credible suspicion that the wrong person may have been convicted of a crime.
I’m torn, if this gets picked up it’ll most likely mean the superb-but-lightly-watched Agent Carter gets cancelled. But even if this isn’t picked up, Agent Carter doesn’t look likely to return for a third season. I’m interested in this solely for Hayley Atwell. Also, on one hand, one of Conviction’s Executive Producers worked on Netflix’s Jessica Jones; but on the other hand, another Executive Producer worked on FOX’s The Following.

•The Death of Eva Sofia Valdez
Logline: An immigrant who rose from rags to riches, Eva Sofia Valdez (Suits’ Gina Torres, in second position), is a celebrated Miami entrepreneur and a champion for immigrant rights. But her success is fueled by an insatiable ambition that could destroy her family, a vendetta against the lover who betrayed her, and ghosts from the past who threaten to reveal the dark sacrifices Eva Sofia made to attain the American Dream. Described as MacBeth with a Cuban twist.
Sure

**Designated Survivor**
Logline: Centers on a lower-level U.S. cabinet member (Kiefer Sutherland) who is suddenly appointed president after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union kills everyone above him in the presidential line of succession. The series is described as a family drama wrapped around a conspiracy thriller about an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation.
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Natasha McElhone, Maggie Q, Kal Penn, Italia Ricci, Adan Canto, LaMonica Garrett
Without having actually watched this yet I’ll go ahead and say Battlestar Galactica already did this particular plotline better

•The Jury
Logline: The anthology series is described as 12 Angry Men meets podcast Serial, The Jury follows a single murder trial as seen through the eyes of the individual jurors, exploring the biases and experiences that influence the jurors’ judgment, and how their preconceptions change along the way.
Like Conviction, I mention this bland-ish-sounding drama only because it stars The Good Wife’s Archie Panjabi. I mean, a Kalinda Sharma spin-off sounds better, but I’ll take this for now.

•Marvel’s Most Wanted
Logline: A second spinoff from Agents of SHIELD, the drama follows the adventures of Bobbi Morse (aka Mockingbird) and Lance Hunter.
Synergize baby

•Broken (formerly untitled Meaghan Oppenheimer)
Logline: A ruthless Dallas divorce attorney’s life begins to unravel when her emotionally damaged, love-addicted sister resurfaces triggering self-destructive tendencies and exposing long-hidden family secrets.
Cast: Anna Paquin, Penelope Ann Miller, Blair Underwood, T.R. Knight, Charity Wakefield, Thad Luckinbill, Zeb Sanders, Enrique Murciano
40% chance it works, 60% chance it’s a forgettable bland piece of nothing

CBS
Comedy
•My Time/Your Time
Logline: Based on Avital Ash’s web series 7P/10E, the comedy the relationship of a young couple (Jane Levy, Nicholas Braun) as they begin dating long distance.

**Untitled Kevin James (13-episode production commitment)**
Logline: A newly retired police officer (Kevin James) looks forward to spending more quality time with his wife (Erinn Hayes) and three kids (Taylor Spreitler) but figures out he faces more challenges at home than he ever did on the streets.

•Untitled Matt LeBlanc comedy (formerly I’m Not Your Friend)
Logline: A contractor (Matt LeBlanc) learns that raising his kids is more challenging than expected when his wife (The Office’s Jenna Fischer) goes back to work.
Not particular optimistic given the middling results the last time CBS made a comedy starring a former Friends star, but this’ll probably be picked up for the name recognition and that CBS-owned Showtime’s Episodes (in which LeBlanc stars) is nearing the end of its run and CBS probably wants to stay in business with him

Drama
•Drew
Logline: A contemporary take on the character from the iconic Nancy Drew book series. Now in her 30s, Nancy (Person of Interest’s Sarah Shahi) is a detective for the NYPD where she investigates and solves crimes using her uncanny observational skills, all while navigating the complexities of life in a modern world.
Sounds like another cookie-cutter CBS procedural to me, but this comes with built in “brand awareness” as they say, plus there’s more buzz surrounding this than most other pilots given the diverse casting for Nancy Drew. Name the show “Nancy Drew” instead of “Drew” though ffs, lest it get confused for a show starring Drew Carey

•MacGyver
Logline: A reimagining of the television series of the same name, following a 20-something MacGyver (X-Men: Apocalypse’s Lucas Till) as he gets recruited into a clandestine organization where he uses his knack for solving problems in unconventional ways to help prevent disasters from happening.
•Training Day
Logline: Described as a reimagining that begins 15 years after the 2001 film left off, the reboot centers on an idealistic young African-American police officer (Justin Cornwell) who is appointed to an elite squad of the LAPD where he is partnered with a seasoned, morally ambiguous detective (Bill Paxton).
Honestly, at this point, CBS is probably better off plowing through prior IP to mine for potential shows than trying to come up with their own look-alike procedurals. I mean, they’re already doing that this year with their current crop of rookie dramas: Supergirl, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Code Black, Rush Hour, Limitless which are based on a comic book, current CBS show, documentary short, movie, and movie respectively. Network television has given up on original TV shows not based on any pre-existing IP because the risk/reward is just not worth it to them.

CW
CW renewed its entire slate of shows currently airing, which means it has less room than usual for new shows on its schedule even though there’s a couple of potentially intriguing prospects among its pilots
Drama
•Frequency
Logline: In this reimagining of the New Line Cinema film, a female police detective (The Flash’s Peyton List) in 2016 discovers she is able to speak via a ham radio with her estranged father (also a detective) who died in 1996. They forge a new relationship while working together on an unresolved murder case, but unintended consequences of the “butterfly effect” wreak havoc in the present day.

•No Tomorrow
Logline: When a risk-averse, straight arrow, female procurement manager (Tori Anderson) at an Amazon-like distribution center falls in love with a freewheeling man who lives life to the fullest because he believes the apocalypse is imminent, to comedic and poignant results they embark on a quest together to fulfill their individual bucket lists. Based on the Brazilian format.

•Riverdale
Logline: Set in present day and based on the iconic Archie Comics characters, Riverdale is a surprising and subversive take on Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart, Surviving Jack), Veronica (Camila Mendes), Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody), Josie (Ashleigh Murray) and their friends, exploring the surrealism of small town life — the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade. Based on the characters from Archie Comics.
Greg Berlanti is already behind the CW’s 3 biggest shows along with CBS’s Supergirl and NBC’s Mysteries of Laura and Blindspot. Keep in business with him

•Transylvania
Logline: In 1880, a headstrong young woman (Laura Brent) in search of her missing father ventures from NYC to Transylvania where she teams with a wrongfully disgraced Scotland Yard detective (Luke Allen-Gale). Together they witness the births of the most famous monsters and villains in history.

•Untitled Mars drama
Logline: A team of explorers arrive on Mars to join the first human colony on the planet, only to discover that their predecessors have vanished. Led by a woman whose husband is among the missing, the colonists are forced to change their mission from exploration and settlement to investigation and survival, while navigating the hostile planet and their own personal demons.
This honestly sounds intriguing, let’s just hope it’s done well

FOX
FOX has the opposite problem as CW in that, with American Idol ending, the network has a whole lot of real estate to fill up with shows, which they’re hoping will have a better success rate than the past season’s crop of new shows.
Comedy
•Chad: An American Boy
Logline: A 14-year-old boy (SNL’s Nasim Pedrad) in the throes of adolescence is tasked with being the man of the house, which leaves him with all the responsibilities of being an adult without any of the perks.
With a premise like that and starring Nasim Pedrad, how could I NOT be at least a little bit curious with how this pans out?Pushed off-cycle

•Charity Case
Logline: When Hailey (Courteney Cox) inherits her late billionaire husband’s charity, she quickly finds that changing the world is far less glamorous than she had imagined.
To have Courteney Cox’s name to plaster in ads promoting the show does half the heavy lifting in trying to get a new show noticed amidst the glut of premieres come September. Whether it’s any good is an entirely different thing.

•The Enforcers
Logline: A female buddy comedy about two wildly different single mothers with dreams of being police officers who find themselves partnered as inspectors in the Code Enforcement Department. Instead of fighting crime, they have been relegated to handling petty code breaking, like noise complaints, tree trimming and water misuse.
Cast: Christine Woods, Niecy Nash, Ian Gomez, Ryan Hansen, Matt Oberg
FOX probably wants to stay in business with Niecy Nash, whom many critics singled out as a highlight in the otherwise-awful Scream Queens. Being recently Emmy-nominated for HBO’s Getting On doesn’t hurt.

•Making History (formerly untitled Sharpe/Lord & Miller, aka In Time)
Logline: Centers on three unlikely friends find an even less likely way to travel through time, irreversibly complicating their personal lives in 2016, as the great moments of the past collide with today’s popular culture — with hilarious and quite disastrous results.
Cast: Adam Pally, Leighton Meester, Yassir Lester (writer on Carmichael Show, Girls)
FOX already ordered to series one of the pilots from Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, the writer-director-producer powerhouse duo behind such hits as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; The LEGO Movie; Last Man on Earth; 21 & 22 Jump Street, etc etc. Going two-for-two will only strengthen the bond between Fox and this lucrative pair

•The Mick
Logline: The comedy revolves around a hard-living, foul-mouthed woman Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny) who moves to affluent Greenwich, Conn., to raise the spoiled kids of her wealthy sister who has fled the country to avoid a federal indictment. She quickly learns what everyone else already knows: other people’s children are awful.
This will be quite a groundbreaking show if it gets ordered to series for being the first show to star a bird

**Son of Zorn (animated/live-action pilot presentation)**
Logline: Centers on an animated Barbarian father who comes home for the first time in 10 years to his live-action son and ex-wife. He finds that reconnecting with his family, struggling through his mundane office job and dealing with the banality of suburban life is much harder than waging actual war in his distant, animated world.
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Cheryl Hines, Tim Meadows, Artemis Pebdani, Johnny Pemberton

•Untitled Laura Steinel comedy (aka HR)
Logline: Centers around Jane (Judy Greer), who is caught between trying to manage her charmingly incompetent human resources department and a new eccentric CEO (Patton Oswalt) who dreams of bringing the New Jersey plastics plant into the future.
Only for you, Patton Oswalt, only for you

Drama
•24: Legacy
Logline: The new take features an all-new cast of characters and will be structured in the same style of the original series. Legacy revolves around a military hero’s (Corey Hawkins, Straight Outta Compton) return to the U.S. and the trouble that follows him back — compelling him to ask CTU for help in saving his life, and stopping what potentially could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil.
See above note about IP

•The Exorcist
Logline: A modern reinvention inspired by William Blatty’s 1971 book, the drama is a propulsive, serialized psychological thriller following two very different men tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession, and confronting the face of true evil.
On one hand, I’m more optimistic about this than most of the other pilots. On the other hand, TV hasn’t delivered on a quality true horror show in, erm, ever?

**Prison Break**
Logline: A new chapter based on the original series about a guy determined to prove his convicted brother’s innocence and save him from death row by creating an elaborate plan to escape from prison.

•Recon
Logline: A rookie FBI agent (Revolution’s Tracy Spiridakos) embeds herself in a suspected terrorist family.
I mean this could be alright…maybe…possibly…

**Shots Fired**
Logline: Explores the aftermath of racially charged shootings in a small town in Tennessee. Sanaa Lathan stars an expert investigator who digs into the cases, alongside a special prosecutor (Stephan James) sent to the town by the Department of Justice. The pair must navigate the media attention, public debate and social unrest that comes with such volatile cases as they seek justice before the divided town erupts.

•Star
Logline: The Atlanta-set drama revolves around three girls who come together to form a band. Star details their rise to the top in a challenging business. While Empire is told from the point of view of music executives, Star will be told from the perspective of the artist.
Stay in business with Empire creator Lee Daniels, etc etc

NBC
Comedy
•Crunch Time
Logline: A hybrid game show/comedy that intercuts between a real game show and the scripted workplace that centers on an up-and-coming producer (Andrea Anders) trying to wrangle the volatile host (Craig Ferguson).
Cast: Craig Ferguson, Kyle Howard (My Boys), Kellee Stewart (My Boys), Andrea Anders, Caitlin McGee, Eugene Cordero
Team: W/EP Betsy Thomas (My Boys); EO Phil Gurin, David Janollari
Between the intriguing format and this looking like a reunion of the enjoyable TBS comedy My Boys, I’m far more intrigued by this than any other comedy in the current pilot season

**Good Place**
Logline: Centers on a woman (Kristen Bell) wrestling with what it means to be good.
Ordered for 13 episodes

•Imaginary Friend
Logline: The winner of NBC’s Playground comedy initiative, centers on Wendy (Megan Neuringer), an intelligent yet unmotivated woman who discovers a special and unexpected way of dealing with her mediocre life.
•Sunset PPL
Logline: The winner of NBC’s Playground Comedy initiative, the pilot centers on a group of millennial friends who struggle with their own made-up rules for personal and professional success.
At this point, developing a show from some Comedy initiative just might be more promising than whatever the audience-tested-to-death shmuck the corporate overlords try to make as blandly palatable as possible for a broad audience

•Untitled Amy Poehler/Charlie Grandy
Logline: After years of partying that earned him the “black sheep” label, Karl (Nico Evers-Swindell) returns home to compete with his brother for the family throne.
Executive Producer Amy Poehler, sold.

•Untitled Matt Hubbard
Logline: Loosely based on Hubbard’s life, the comedy centers on a guy (Chris Smith) who learns to manage the expectations and strong cultural traditions of his in-laws after he moves his family to his wife’s (Elizabeth Ho) hometown.
Cast: Jack McBrayer, Chris Smith, Elizabeth Ho, Francois Chau, Susan Chuang, Concetta Tomei
Team: W/EP Matt Hubbard (30 Rock); EP/showrunner Mike Schur (Parks and Recreation); EP David Miner;
Matt Hubbard, Mike Schur, Jack McBrayer. Sold

•The Trial
Logline: A serialized comedy following a young big-city lawyer (Nick D’Agosto) and his oddball defense team during a high-profile murder trial in a small southern town.
Cast: Nick D’Agosto, John Lithgow, Sherri Shepherd, Steven Boyer, Jayma Mays, Krysta Rodriguez
I want to say no, but the cast is decent

Drama
•Blacklist spinoff — set to air May 12 as a planted episode
Logline: Being kept under wraps.
Cast: Famke Janssen, Edi Gathegi, Tawny Cypress
Sure, why not. You already have a million Chicago [insert department name here] shows

•Chicago Justice (planted spinoff of Chicago PD; formerly known as Chicago Law)
Logline: A spinoff featuring ADA characters appearing on Chicago PD.
As I was saying…

**Taken**
Logline: A modern-day prequel to Luc Besson’s feature of the same name that starred Liam Neeson as a retired CIA operative Bryan Mills on a one-man mission to save his kidnapped daughter. The series will illustrate how a young Bryan (Vikings’ Clive Standen) develops his skills.
I’m gonna go ahead and predict this bombs. Taken only worked because of Liam Neeson, and even then to diminishing returns with the sequels

•Midnight, Texas
Logline: Based on the New York Times best-selling trilogy from Charlaine Harris, the drama is described as Twin Peaks meets True Blood in Midnight, Texas, a remote town where your neighbor could be a vampire, a witch, a werewolf and even an angel. Mystery, horror and romance combine to both enthrall and frighten any outsiders who decide to venture into this unusual place.
I’ve read so many pilot descriptions I’m at the point where I just go ‘eh, fuck it’

•Time
Logline: The high-octane drama follows an unlikely trio who travel through time to battle a master criminal intent on altering the fabric of human history with potentially catastrophic results.
Cast: Matt Lanter (90210), Abigail Spencer (Rectify), Goran Visnjic, Claudia Doumit, Paterson Joseph, Malcolm Barrett, Sakina Jaffrey
Team: W/EP Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryan’s (The Shield, Last Resort, Terriers) gotta get another hit/quality show sooner or later…right?

2015 Upfronts Pt. 3c: If I Scheduled NBC for 2015-16

Cancel/Renewal Predictions. Pilot Preview. ABC. CBS.

Let’s talk about the last of the Big 3: NBC. It’s most likely to be the #1 network of the season, boosted by airing the Super Bowl, The Voice, Chicago P.D./Fire & The Blacklist. But it had one helluva rough season, its crop of new shows were a wash, Mysteries of Laura was (somehow) renewed while pretty much the rest of its freshmen shows came and went without so much as peep. As an example of how bad it is at NBC right now, this past week 5 of its hours were filled with Dateline. It could be looking at a steep drop in the ratings if it doesn’t shore up its schedule (particularly days when it’s not airing The Voice) quick.

Sunday
Current Schedule: Dateline/A.D.: The Bible Continues/American Odyssey
After football season was over, NBC aired A LOT of repeats and Dateline on Sundays. It’s like they just gave up on the day.
Originally I was gonna slot 3 female-led shows that NBC could promote as some sort of ‘Women Who Kick Ass’ night but then realized Shades of Blue would be better suited/more likely to get a post-Voice slot and Telenova was only half an hour.
Dateline will kick off the night because there’s only so many hours of the show that can be replaced, follow it with the slightly intriguing-sounding Blindspot (it may be NBC’s best bet of the night quality-wise and may be better to start it an hour earlier than when most cable dramas start). Chicago Medical may be a spin-off too many but at least it (probably) won’t out-and-out bomb, though I don’t foresee it becoming a runaway hit. That’d still be an improvement on all the dramas NBC have tried—and failed—to launch lately. Medical show Heartbreaker may be suitable follow-up, though I’m bearish on its prospects. Is it too early to start making predictions on which show will be the first to be axed in the fall season?

Monday
Current Schedule:The Voice/The Night Shift
NBC likes to gives its biggest, buzziest shows the post-Monday Night Voice slow, first was Revolution, then Smash, Blacklist, and State of Affairs. Whichever show gets the slow in the fall may not feel great to be on that list since 3 of those shows are cancelled and The Blacklist is hitting series lows after being moved. But, following the logic of it all, NBC will likely slot its big Jennifer Lopez-starring cop drama (I know, who the fuck, aside from the blind (and even then) will buy Lopez as a dirty cop) after The Voice. Hell they’ll probably get her to perform on the episode of The Voice preceding Shades of Blue’s premiere.

Tuesday
>Current Schedule:The Voice/Undateable/One Big Happy/Chicago Fire
The Voice starts off the night, Chicago Fire ends it. NBC has ordered a number of pilots, which means it could try launching comedies on another night, but Tuesdays comedy block will probably stay intact. Eva Longoria-starring Telenovela sounds extremely compatible to the post-Voice slot given their respective and likely audience. Out of the other comedies NBC has ordered, People are Talking or Superstore sound like a fit. People are Talking sounds like a good candidate…..to get its series order cut and not premiere until the summer of 2017 so Superstore it is.

Wednesday
Current Schedule:The Mysteries of Laura/Law & Order: Special Victims Unit/Chicago P.D.
The ratings on this night seems to swing wildly depending on whether or not there’s a crossover event on all of Dick Wolf’s shows. While it might seem like a good idea to keep Wednesday’s in tact, and it is, it’s a better idea to prop up NBC’s Thursday, which is on life support, to put it generously. Move Chicago P.D. over to kick off that night, keeping Mysteries of Laura and Law & Order in place. Crazy idea, slot comedies Coach and Crowded after Law & Order. I doubt it will happen, if anything Coach will get a Friday or earlier Wednesday slot, maybe even Thursday if NBC gives up on all drama Thursdays (or Tuesday if NBC wants to be crazy, the demographic of Coach does not match that of The Voice). The demographics of Mysteries of Laura fits well with Coach, but it would probably get stampeded by Modern Family.

Thursday
Current Schedule:Repeats/The Blacklist/Dateline
In theory, moving NBC’s smash hit The Blacklist to Thursdays to remake it as a drama night wasn’t bad on paper.
Except a) the audiences of Scandal and The Blacklist seemed to cannibalize each other a bit and
b) season 2 of Blacklist had been trending downward and was seemingly exacerbated by its move
While The Blacklist remains an extremely strong DVR player, NBC needs to build up the night quickly as the 2 dramas they surrounded it with (The Slap, Allegiance) quickly sunk like a stone.
With that in mind, move over Chicago P.D. from Wednesday so serve as a suitable lead-in, and close out the night with another seemingly testosterone-fueled show Game of Silence. It may be tempting to slot a different new show in the 1st hour and Chicago Medical in the last hour (y’know, to harken back to the days of ER) but 3 days in a row of Chicago [whatever] might be a bit much. I can’t wait ’till NBC greenlights Chicago Waste Disposal.

Friday
Current Schedule:Grimm/Dateline
Without some of sort of genre show to pair with Grimm this year as in years past (Constantine, Hannibal, Dracula), Friday is a bit tough to schedule. NBC could very well throw up their/its hands and say ‘fuck it’ and continue on with Grimm and 2 hours of Dateline, but The Player sounds like a show that will be schedule for the fall.

2015-16 NBC television schedule
new shows in italics

Sunday: Dateline/Blindspot/Chicago Medical/Heartbreaker
Monday: The Voice/Shades of Blue
Tuesday: The Voice/Telenovela/Superstore/Chicago Fire
Wednesday: Mysteries of Laura/Law & Order: SVU/Coach/Crowded
Thursday: Chicago P.D./The Blacklist/Game of Silence
Friday: The Player/Grimm/Dateline

Last Year’s Upfront Preview:
Part 3: NBC
Part 3: CBS
Part 3: ABC
Part 2: Pilot Preview
Part 1: Cancel/Renew

2015 Upfronts Pt. 3b: If I Scheduled CBS for 2015-16

I’ve looked at the chances of this season’s shows being cancelled/renewed. I’ve looked at some of the pilots. I’ve discussed at length what I might do if I were in charge of scheduling ABC. Now it’s time to take a look at CBS.

I touched a bit on CBS’s shaky future when looking at the pilots. They’ve had a lot of shows this season that are hits. All of them, pretty much are hits. CBS regularly dominates in total viewers, pulling in more viewers than the other networks combined. Thing is, the audience skews old. For better or worse, for whatever reason, the key demographic advertisers care about when it comes to broadcast television is the 18-49 demographic. The higher the 18-49 rating, the more they’re willing to shell out for a commercial slot. CBS may dominate in total viewers regularly (they’ve won something like 12 of the last 13 TV seasons in total viewers), but their shows skew old, and that old skew is not ‘youthening’ up (down?) anytime soon.

There’s the stereotype about CBS programming, its dramas are all spin-offs of some other crime/murderporn show, and its comedies are laugh-track, stale-joke shows. No matter the perception, for a long time, that worked. By simple virtue of having the most viewers, they naturally also had the most 18-49 viewers. That is becoming less and less the case every season. This season has seen many CBS stalwarts come down to Earth. The latest Big Bang Theory season finale finished down 20% from last year. The latest episode of NCIS pulled in 14M viewers compared to The Voice’s 9M. Totally got it beat, right? Not in the all-important 18-49 demo, they tied at 2.0. This is the demo that determines how financially-valuable a show is. And right now its right in line with a show pulling in 60% less total viewers. This is a show that pulled in 3’s and 4’s, that started out the season with a 2.9. Here’s the thing, for a show in its 12th season, that is really quite good, especially in today’s TV landscape. But NCIS is indicative of many of CBS’s shows, they’re in their umpteenth season, on a slow descent in the ratings, still pulling in respectable numbers, but CBS hasn’t really hit it big with any of its new shows in recent years. While ABC has a good mix of old, middle-aged, and young shows, CBS’s best-performing shows are shows it launched 5+ years ago and its newer shows have been middling at best.

These shows have life in them yet, but CBS is a 2nd place network. ABC (3rd) is nipping at its heels. CBS may remain in 2nd for seasons to come due to FOX & NBC’s struggles, but really, they want to be 1st and to do that they need to launch 18-49 hits, without immediately alienating their current audience or they’ll end up the network version of JC Penny.

Sunday
Current Schedule:60 Minutes/Madam Secretary/The Good Wife/Battle Creek
Sunday is a fixer-upper. Madam Secretary is another prime example of the double-edge sword of CBS programming, it pulls in perfectly fine ratings in total viewership, but man oh man does this show skew old. It started off decently with a 2.0 rating (far from spectacular given how hard CBS was pushing this show) ended with a 1.0 for its last two episodes of the season. That. is. miserable. Multiple comedies have been cancelled recently pulling in ratings a little higher than a 1.0 and a) they’re on networks worse off than CBS & b) comedies are less expensive to produce than hour-long dramas. CBS inexplicably renewed it in a wave of freshmen renewals earlier in the season, and boy they must be kicking themselves for it.
All this is to say, they probably can’t stop the bleeding, but they need stave it off. When Fox renewed Glee for 2 seasons and then saw its ratings plummet, they cut the episode order for its last season and shipped it off to Fridays.
Do that. Order 13 episodes and push it elsewhere. Sundays & Thursdays are the most valuable nights and CBS’s Sunday shows have been 3rd/4th-place finishers in the Spring.
60 Minutes usually drops off in Spring, but when it has football in front it can pull in ratings. There’s bigger problems then messing with a show that’s been in its time slot since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. CBS moved The Amazing Race to Fridays and, of course, its ratings dropped, and not to an acceptable depressed-Friday-ratings standard either. TAR was doing perfectly fine on Sundays before getting shipped off. Bring it back and see how it does. It couldn’t do worse than Madam Secretary. It serves as a segue from a news show to scripted shows, appealing to both CBS’s broad/older audience while not putting off the 18-49 demo.
Sundays is admittedly a difficult place to launch a drama, especially if you’re on network television. Cablers from AMC, HBO, Showtime, and even FX this past summer have staked their claim on Sunday nights as the place for prestige & boundary-pushing television. CBS should take its biggest, buzziest show and stick it in the 3rd hour: Supergirl. Sundays in fall particularly skew more male between Football, Walking Dead, and other testosterone-infused shows. While Supergirl will pull in comic book fans (a decidedly male-skewing demographic), it could very well intrigue and get sampling from females watching the first female superhero-starring network show in…forever?
Plant a flag on Sunday nights and follow up Supergirl with another buzzy show: Limitless.

Monday
Current Schedule: 2 Broke Girls/Mike & Molly/Scorpion/NCIS: Los Angeles
CBS’s Thursday Night Football gives it a chance to temporarily relocate its biggest comedy to help bolster its Mondays. Other than that, I wouldn’t tinker with Mondays too much; while it hovers around 2nd-3rd place for the night, Scorpion is probably the most stable of CBS’s new shows this past season. Additionally, moving NCIS: Los Angeles in its 10/9 o’clock hour, while leading to a bit of a steeper-than-predicted ratings depreciation, has managed to shore up an hour CBS has had trouble with. Its ratings have mostly stabilized. The question becomes which new comedy to have follow TBBT on Mondays? CBS hasn’t ordered too many comedies thusfar (that might change when they officially announce their schedule at their upfronts presentation), but out of the two ordered so far, Jane Lynch-starring Angel from Hell sounds better. After TBBT moves back to Thursdays, Angel from Hell will probably mesh at least decently with its presumed lead-in 2 Broke Girls.

Tuesday
Current Schedule: NCIS/NCIS: New Orleans/Person of Interest
Tuesdays is mostly firm night for CBS, but its ratings slide from the beginning to end of the 2014-15 season are worrying. The back-to-back NCIS programming might be burning out audiences who may getting their fill of NCIS after 1 hour of the show. Move NCIS: New Orleans to another night. After spending its entire 12 seasons anchoring Tuesdays, it may be time to shift NCIS (this was also right around the same time in CSI’s life that CBS moved it from its Thursday night perch). Move NCIS an hour later and help it launch a new show (sorry Person of Interest, in my scenario it gets cancelled). Put another buzzy movie-to-TV show adaptation into the 8/7c slot,, Rush Hour will probably get some sampling for its initial episode, and will counterprogram NBC’s The Voice in the same hour. That it’s a cop show will fit in with NCIS. Place Code Black, CBS’s medical drama in the 10/9 o’clock hour

Wednesday
Current Schedule: Survivor/Criminal Minds/CSI: Cyber
The first 2 hours are good enough for now, though CBS has been having some struggles in the last hour on Wednesdays. Reports are that CSI: Cyber has been renewed. Whether or not it has, let’s not place it back in its old time slot where it premiered modestly and by the end of its run was routinely beaten by competition on NBC (Chicago P.D.) and ABC (Nashville). NCIS: New Orleans goes into the 10/9 hour to stem the bleeding and hopefully stabilize the hour.

Thursday
Current Schedule: The Big Bang Theory/The Odd Couple/Mom/TBBT repeat/Elementary
With the relative dearth of comedy orders from CBS coupled with its struggles maintaining 2 hours of comedies on Thursday (it currently has a TBBT repeat regularly scheduled for the night) AND its many drama renewals, it’s conceivable that it will cut back an hour of comedies on Thursday.
But, I’m more bearish than bullish on the likelihood of that possibility so sticking with the 2 hours of comedy that CBS currently has, and assuming The Odd Couple gets renewed (it had a pretty good hold of TBBT’s audience until it tapered off a bit towards the tail end of its run), have TBBT & Mom continue leading off the 7(/8) and 8(/9) hours, with The Odd Couple sandwiched between them and and Mom leading out to new family comedy Life in Pieces. Initially I was adamant that Elementary would move to Friday (and still think that very well could be the case), but given how I’ve scheduled the preceding days and not seeing any chance of Madam Secretary moving to Thursday, I reluctantly keep Elementary in its place. It’s definitely a prime candidate for a move to Friday given its trending downward ratings.

Friday
Current Schedule: The Amazing Race/Hawaii Five-0/Blue Bloods
Hawaii Five-0 could very well get cancelled, but I’m a bit more optimistic about its survival chances. I don’t see Madam Secretary getting a chance to lead in to any programs so stick it into the last hour and shift the current scripted shows on Friday back an hour.

2015-16 CBS television schedule
new shows in italics

Sunday: 60 Minutes/The Amazing Race/Supergirl/Limitless
Monday: The Big Bang Theory/Angel from Hell/Scorpion/NCIS: Los Angeles
(After football: 2 Broke Girls replaces TBBT)
Tuesday: Rush Hour/NCIS/Code Black
Wednesday: Survivor/Criminal Minds/NCIS: New Orleans
Thursday: Thursday Night Football
(After football: The Big Bang Theory/The Odd Couple/Mom/Life in Pieces/Elementary)
Friday: Hawaii Five-0/Blue Bloods/Madam Secretary

Last Year’s Upfront Preview:
Part 3: CBS
Part 3: ABC
Part 2: Pilot Preview
Part 1: Cancel/Renew

2015 Upfronts Pt. 3a: If I Scheduled ABC for 2015-16

I’ve looked at the prospects of renewal/cancellation for current shows (and since then a whole lot of shows have been renewed (iZombie & Agent Carter, woo!!) or cancelled) and gone over the pilots for the potential new shows next season, now it’s time to move on to the main event: playing backseat executive and scheduling the networks’ TV shows for the upcoming TV season.

As I’d mentioned in my look at the pilots, despite most likely winding up as a 3rd place network for the 2014-15 Television season in the 18-49 demo (NBC will likely be 1st, CBS 2nd, ABC, and FOX dead last), ABC is actually in a strong position right now. It’s laid a solid foundation for it to build on next season with a healthy mix of shows of various ages. It has its veteran players still pulling in the ratings (Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy), medium-aged shows approaching/just past syndication numbers (Scandal, Once Upon a Time, The Goldbergs) and it probably launched the most hits this season that remained consistent throughout its run (Black-ish, Fresh off the Boat, How to Get Away with Murder). ABC needs to capitalize on this and 2nd place doesn’t seem unimaginable next season, after all, 2nd-place CBS is at a crossroads with many old and old-skewing shows in addition to having difficulty launching anything more than a modest hit (as I will discuss in my upcoming CBS ‘fantasy schedule’ post).

Sunday
Current Schedule: America’s Funniest Home Videos/Once Upon a Time/Secrets & Lies/Revenge
Believe it or not, America’s Funniest Home Videos still pulls in perfectly decent ratings, and OUaT was rejuvenated in the fall from its Frozen storyline. Though AFHV host Tom Bergeron will be stepping down after this season, that doesn’t seem like it’ll be a catalyst for a precipitous ratings drop.
So what to do with the last 2 hours of Sunday? The cancellation of Revenge opens up an hour to premiere a new show. It may be tempting to keep Secrets & Lies in place, as opposed to last year’s Spring newbie Resurrection, S&L grew throughout its run, hitting series highs in its season finale. Not officially renewed, but a definite shoo-in,Now officially renewed, but where to schedule it? Fall or Spring? Sunday or a different day? Will the fans come back to see most of the cast replaced as Juliette Lewis comes back to investigate a new case? There’s no obvious good choice here, while
There are 3 ABC dramas that have been ordered to series that are a little more male-skewing, two having a historical bent: Kings and Prophets, Wicked Crime, and the show formerly known as Boom. TSFKA Boom is the most intriguing of ABC’s pilots, focusing on the oil boom in North Dakota and a couple who moves there for the economic opportunities. Save this for mid-season and, if it’s any good, give it a big marketing push (well, relatively big for a mid-season show) so it doesn’t get lost in the morass of all the new fall shows. Slot anthology show Wicked Crime (its previous name L.A. Crime was better, they definitely need to retool the name so it sounds less telenovela) and end the night with Kings and Prophets.

Monday
Current Schedule: Dancing with the Stars/Castle
Castle is getting old aka pricier and while Nathan Fillion has signed on for another season, Stana Katic is still in the midst of contract negotiations. With decent ratings (if older-skewing), Castle seems like a safe bet to come back for another season.Castle has been officially renewed (ABC is renewing/cancelling a raft of shows since I started this post yesterday). Dancing with the Stars still pulls in ratings and has been in the Monday night time slot since 2007. Monday’s is solid enough to let it be.

Tuesday
Current Schedule:Dancing with the Stars/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Forever
Tuesday has been a bit of a sore spot for ABC, with the last hour in particular being a graveyard of cancelled shows. The opening hour also barely got to know Selfie/Manhattan Love Story before both got yanked off the schedule. However Spring saw the arrival of Fresh off the Boat which got heavy sampling from premiering two episodes in Wednesday’s comedy block (one after Modern Family). After moving to its regular Tuesday time slot it dropped off as expected but didn’t slide too far, managing to stabilize at perfectly decent levels. To no surprise it’s been renewed. The question is for how many episodes and if not a full season, fall or spring? This doesn’t particularly seem like a show to benefit greatly plot-wise from shorter orders so go ahead and give it a full 22-episode order and have it continue launching the night. Have Dr. Ken follow it up.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been performing ably enough, a time slot move may be warranted later, but to start off the season keep it at Tuesday 9/8c. Reports are that the AoS spin-off (the not John Ridley-written one) is on hold/dead in the water, otherwise I would’ve slotted it after AoS as CBS does with its NCIS spinoffs. With that spin-off out of the picture, out of the dramas ABC has ordered to series (so far), there are 3 similarly-themed shows that could mix and match well on Sunday leaving the Joan Allen-starring The Family for Tuesday. It could be Quantico but I’m more intrigued in The Family, leave Quantico for mid-season.

Wednesday
Current Schedule: The Middle/The Goldbergs/Modern Family/Black-ish/Nashville
There are talks of ABC switching up its Wednesday night comedy line-up. FFS ABC, you FINALLY have a lineup that works and you want to muck with it? What utter sheer stupidity. You’ve found a show that builds on The Middle, you found a show that doesn’t drop 75% of its Modern Family lead-in, you have other holes to plug. Sure The Middle is an older show that never really broke out in the way Modern Family did. It still is a very potent self-starter with no lead-in of its own. Sure Modern Family has come down from its ratings heyday. It’s still the highest rated show on Wednesday (when Empire isn’t airing). Don’t. be. stupid.
On the other hand, Nashville. It has been chugging along at barely-above-cancellation numbers for much of its life, granted it’s been pretty darn consistent in its ratings, the widest gulf between its highest and lowest-rated episodes is a 0.5 and that was only on one occasion. Outside of 3 episodes, the ratings for Nashville have maintained in the 1.3-1.5 range for 17 of its season 3 episodes, that’s impressive. What’s more, it consistently brings in around another ratings point in DVR ratings. There’s a reliable audience here.
But. A 1.3 rating is not spectacular. The power of syndication compels another season of Nashville (4 full seasons is the basic minimum for a show to enter the syndication market, if a show has 3 full seasons (≈66 episodes) under its belt, its a shoo-in for a 4th season), especially since ABC is also the studio behind Nashville and it has musical merchandise as another revenue stream. However, as I said before, ABC needs to build and capitalize on its momentum, the Wednesday 10/9 o’clock spot needs a show that stands a better chance at pulling in ratings above a 1.3, especially in light of ABC’s stronger preceding hours. Put a new show in the last hour and move Nashville to Fridays, however give Nashville a late fall start, if the new Wednesday show bombs, boom, move Nashville back.
Crazy idea, Wednesday is a solid comedy night for ABC, there’s really no laggards in the bunch. Why not go full comedy, 6 comedies on Wednesday. Sure, the last time a network did that (NBC Thursdays in the 2010-2011 season) it didn’t work out. While there was a lot of quality comedies then (Community, 30 Rock, Parks & Rec), none of them were ratings dynamos in the way ABC Wednesdays are. ABC has a strong line-up of family comedies that flows nicely into each other, not even CBS has been able to sustain 2 hours of consistently-rated comedies: it scrapped its Monday attempt at 2 hours of comedy last year and right now its Thursdays include a Big Bang Theory repeat. This is asking for an extension into the 9(/10) o’clock hour. You could slot Fresh off the Boat & Dr. Ken here, but you really need a solid show to anchor the 9(10) o’clock hour if you’re gonna pull that off.
The Muppets. There will be large sampling for at least the first couple episodes. ABC renewed medieval musical comedy Galavant which would pair nicely with the occasionally musical Muppets.
Hell, launch this out of the craziness of the rush of fall premieres and save it for November sweeps. Kick off Nashville as usual to end the night then move it to Fridays and launch The Muppets/Galavant.

Thursday
Current Schedule: Grey’s Anatomy/Scandal/American Crime (Spring)
ABC finally found a way to solve its Thursday first-hour problem, after years of failing to launch a show in the 8/7c hour that stuck around longer than a season (if even), simply shifting the schedule back plugged the hole along with presenting a marketing opportunity under the TGIT banner.
There are potential headwinds however. A twist in Grey’s Anatomy has many fans upset, swearing off the show. While too much stock shouldn’t be put in people complaining online, the original cast of GA is dwindling and there really hasn’t been any breakout new cast members since then (so far as I can tell). I don’t anticipate an immediate, steep drop for the season 12 premiere, but Grey’s may fall to the curse of the Thursday 8/7c timeslot yet.
Scandal has been solid as rock for ABC. After a decent 1st season, it’s become a runaway hit, strong enough to be the lead-in program to help launch other shows. After season 4 premiered to a fantastic 3.8, it’s maintained a rating right around 3.0 (read: very good).
Take a look at the ratings for Scandal’s past 10 episodes since coming back in Winter: 3.6, 3.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.0, 2.7, 2.4, 2.3, 2.1, 2.4, 2.3. It hasn’t hit a rating that low since the beginning of its 2nd season. And those dips aren’t accompanied by a corresponding increase in DVR viewing either. Springtime usually brings a dip in viewership as viewers enjoy the warmer weather and more daytime hours, but such a downward trajectory is worrying, coupled with dumb plot lines and the feeling that the spark of the show is near-extinguished (based on what I gleaned from online rumblings) is worrying. Can Scandal still anchor the 8 o’clock (/9 o’clock) hour? Intriguing things to look forward to in the upcoming season.
Despite all of what I just wrote, Thursday is still (thusfar) a solid-enough night, it might crash and burn next season, but that will be next season’s problem. Keep up TGIT. Grey’s. Scandal. HTGAWM in the fall. Order another Shonda Rhimes show (The Catch) and put that in Spring after HTGAWM wraps up. This may be much ado about nothing, maybe.

Friday
Current Schedule: Shark Tank/Beyond the Tank/20/20
Start the season off with the exact same combination as above, Shark Tank, BtT, 20/20, then sometime mid-October-to-early-November move Nashville to start off the night and move Shark Tank back an hour.

2015-16 ABC television schedule
new shows in italics

Sunday: America’s Funniest Home Videos/Once Upon a Time/Wicked Crime/Kings and Prophets
Monday: Dancing with the Stars/Castle
Tuesday: Fresh off the Boat/Dr. Ken/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./The Family
Wednesday: The Middle/The Goldbergs/Modern Family/Black-ish/The Muppets/Galavant
Thursday: Grey’s Anatomy/Scandal/How to Get Away with Murder (Fall), The Catch (Spring)
Friday: Nashville/Shark Tank/20/20

Last Year’s Upfront Preview:
Part 3: ABC
Part 2: Pilot Preview
Part 1: Cancel/Renew

2015 Upfronts Preview Pt. 2: Shaping Up the Pilots

This is the second part of my preview of upfronts, the annual event in early May when broadcast networks present their upcoming television schedules to advertisers in NYC in the hope of creating interest in new/returning shows so companies buy airtime for commercials. This is usually when the fates of pretty much all your favorite shows will be revealed (renewed or canceled), which I went over here.

For the uninitiated, pilot season is the late-Winter-to-Spring scramble when broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CW) sift through their pilots (first episode) to decide which ones to order to series. There’s usually a glut of pilots to go through (here’s a list of pilots under consideration via The Hollywood Reporter and Variety), with the vast majority never seen by the public. In a minority of cases, some pilots get retooled and pushed for next year for the same or different networks.

Based on the descriptions, cast, and crew of the pilots under consideration, here are the pilots I think sound the best quality-wise or fitting and potentially benefitting their respective networks. OF COURSE just judging by the descriptions, cast, and crew without seeing the actual pilot is going into this process semi-blind. Who would’ve thought a show about “…a hard-working, religious young Latina woman whose family tradition and vow to save her virginity until her marriage…is shattered when a doctor mistakenly artificially inseminates her during a checkup” would wind up being a one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the season (airing on the CW no less), picking up a Golden Globe for star Gina Rodriguez along with a Peabody Award for the show amongst numerous other nominations and honors.

But, being the TV junkie that I am, here are my thoughts on the pilots.

In the last part of my upfronts preview (coming later this week/early next week), I will work my way through each individual broadcast network and opine how each one should schedule their 2015-16 television season to plug ratings gaps and build on ratings momentum. Backseat-executive-ing all the way.

**means picked up for series order**

ABC
Ugh, reading through these pilots was by and large an uninspiring experience, especially so in the case of ABC whose comedies seems to lean very heavily on audience’s potential nostalgia for former TV stars. And look how well that’s paid off in recent years with shows centered on Michael J. Fox, Sean Hayes, Katherine Heigl, Debra Messing, etc etc.
With that said, ABC comes into upfronts with a strong hand, granted they may end up with 3rd or 4th place finish in the ratings, but they have a good mix of current shows, from veteran shows still pulling in the ratings (Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy, The Middle, Castle), to ably-performing middle-aged shows looking to add more seasons to their lucrative syndication value (Once Upon a Time, The Goldbergs, Scandal) and young break-out hits looking to keep up the momentum in future seasons (How to Get Away with Murder, Black-ish). Whereas other networks may be devoid of hits or have too many old (and therefore pricey) shows over the hump ratings-wise, ABC’s hits are spread evenly age-wise, allowing them to be able to straddle the line of caution and adventurousness when selecting pilots.
Comedy
•The King of 7B
Logline: “An agoraphobic recluse ventures outside for the first time in 20 years when he spies what could be his soul mate moving into the building across the street. Prentiss Porter will embark on an incredible journey of discovery right outside his front door in this ensemble comedy.”
Cast: Craig Ferguson, Carla Jiminez, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Amir Talai, Marin Hinkle, Ione Sky (guest)
Had to wade through 8 of the most generic-sounding shows to finally read something that sounds new

•The Muppets
“A contemporary, documentary-style show that — for the first time ever — will explore the Muppets’ personal lives and relationships, both at home and at work, as well as romances, break-ups, achievements, disappointments, wants and desires; a more adult Muppet show, for kids of all ages.”
ABC is owned by Disney, and Disney is all about that synergy. After the relative box office disappointment of Muppets Most Wanted, Disney will strive to keep the Muppets in public consciousness and may figure the gang of felt animals may be better served by a television series

Drama
•The Advocate
“Tough, resourceful and at the top of her game, a type-A businesswoman (24’s Kim Raver) has a medical scare, only to be dangerously misdiagnosed. She experiences firsthand the hazards of the healthcare system. Shocking her friends and family, she leaves her career behind, becoming instead a brilliant and relentless advocate for anyone caught in the chaotic and ever-changing maze that is modern medicine.”

•Boom
“The biggest oil discovery in American history (bigger than Texas and as big as Saudi Arabia) has triggered a geopolitical shift and an economic boom in North Dakota on a scale not seen since the American 1849 Gold Rush. The drama tracks the epic pilgrimage of a young, ambitious couple (Chase Crawford) to the oil fields of the Bakken seeking their fortune and a better life — a classic tale with modern twists. As viewers follow their trials and tribulations in a modern-day “Wild West,” they negotiate a colorful ensemble of roughnecks, grifters, oil barons (Don Johnson), criminals and fellow prospectors against a stark and beautiful backdrop.”
The most ambitious-sounding of ABC’s crop of drama pilots

•Broad Squad
“Inspired by true stories, the drama follows the first four women to graduate from Boston’s Police Academy in 1978.”
Cast: Lauren Ambrose, Rutina Wesley, Charlotte Spencer, Cody Horn, Michael Gaston, Kenneth Mitchell, Alberto Frezza, Morgan Spector

•The Catch
“Centers on a gutsy female forensic accountant (The Killing’s Mireille Enos) who exposes fraud for a living and has finally found fulfillment both at work and in love until a case comes along that threatens to turn her world upside down.”
Executive Producer: Shonda Rhimes (i.e. Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder)
First of all, more Mireille Enos wh00t wh00t. Second, this show comes from Shondaland i.e. the lady who has 3 hit shows on ABC (TGIT) right now, whatever Shonda Rhimes wants, Shonda gets.

•The Kingmakers
“When his sister is found dead during her freshman year at an elite Ivy League university, a young man adopts a new identity to infiltrate the school and its century-old secret society — consisting of privileged students, ambitious faculty and high-profile alums — in order to investigate her death.”
Not personally very interested, but it’s a semi-sort-of-spin-off from Revenge and the buzz is this stands a decent shot of getting picked up

•L.A. Crime
“A character-driven, true-crime procedural anthology that explores sex, politics and popular culture across various noteworthy eras in L.A. history. Season one focuses on two LA cops in search for a Bonnie & Clyde-esque serial killing team amid the rock-and-roll, coke-infused revelry of the 1980s Sunset Strip.”
The anthology game is hot right now (True Detective, Fargo, American Horror Story), get in on it before another network does

•Kings and Prophets
“An epic Biblical saga of faith, ambition and betrayal as told through the eyes of a battle-weary king (Ray Winstone), a powerful and resentful prophet and a resourceful young shepherd on a collision course with destiny.”

•Original Sin
“The return of a local politician’s (Joan Allen) young son (The Way, Way Back’s Liam James), formerly presumed dead after disappearing more than a decade earlier, sends shockwaves through his tight knit family. But as the mysterious young man is welcomed back into his community, the neighbor (Andrew McCarthy) sitting in jail for his murder is released and the cop responsible is forced to re-examine what truly happened so many years ago.”
After Joan Allen’s fantastic turn on the final season of The Killing, and a similar-sounding role, I want to see this just for her. It may be a heaping pile of dog dung, but she’ll probably be the least dungy of the lot

•Quantico
“A group of young FBI recruits, all with specific reasons for joining, battle their way through training at the Quantico base in Virginia. As we intercut between their hidden pasts and their present training, we also flash-forward to the near future, where one of the recruits will turn out to be a sleeper terrorist responsible for the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.”
Not really high hopes for this, but that twist entices me just enough

CBS
Remember what I said above about some networks having too many old shows deep into their run and not enough new hits to take their place? That’s CBS. Most of CBS’s hits from the 2014-15 season are only modest hits, and while CBS has gone ahead and renewed much of its freshmen shows, some of them have plummeted in the ratings (ahem, Madam Secretary). Yes, CBS is the undisputed leader when it comes to total viewership, and all its new shows do very well in overall viewership. Total viewership, however, does not dictate how much advertisers are willing to pay for a commercial spot, it’s the all-important 18-49 demo rating that determines the price advertisers are willing to pay to air a commercial. The 18-49 rating is exactly what it sounds like, the percentage of those aged 18-49 watching a show. By virtue of having the most-watched shows, CBS often also had the most highly-rated shows in the 18-49 demo. However, as its shows age and go through the natural cycle of shedding viewers deeper into its run and launches shows that skews much older and only rate modestly in the 18-49 demo, CBS is at a crossroads; it’s been at a crossroads for probably a couple seasons now and have a couple more to go before things get detrimental. They need a breakout hit on the scale of Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, The Blacklist, The Flash, Gotham (to an extent) and not the millionth incarnation of NCSI: Jamaica: SD: SUV::
CBS needs a buzzy show that breaks through to all ages and help slow the perception it’s a stodgy, old, criminal-show-porn network. Still, you’ll notice a few on-brand shows here since you can’t push away your current clientele all at once while chasing another demographic, just ask JCPenny.
(Btw, depending who you ask, the reasoning will vary for why the 18-49 demo is so highly sought after by advertisers, from we’re just forming our brand connections to we talk more about what we buy. There’s really no concrete reason that’s been settled on. And yes, there’s been some complaints that those 50+ get shafted and ignored when they usually have more discretionary income. Go figure.)
While some networks may exhibit more patience with older-skewing shows, the 18-49 demo is still the almighty yardstick for a show’s renewal/cancellation prospects. Many a show that pulled in a decent amount of viewers but ranked poorly in the 18-49 demo have been axed in seasons passed (Harry’s Law, Body of Proof))
Comedy
•Angel From Hell
“When Amy (Glee’s Jane Lynch) enters Allison’s (Maggie Lawson) life and claims to be her guardian angel, they form an unlikely friendship and Allison can’t be sure if Amy is an angel or just nuts.”
Cast: Jane Lynch, Maggie Lawson, Kyle Bornheimer, Kevin Pollak
People like Jane Lynch, she’s like tall Ellen

•Happy Life
“Joe is a family man (Wings’ Steven Weber) who struggles with the fact that everyone around him is pursuing their dreams and enjoying their lives more than he is.”
On-brand for CBS, sounds less bad than the other pilots

•Super Clyde — redeveloped from 2013
“A meek, unassuming fast-food worker finds his calling.”
This comes from Greg Garcia. It is single-camera format. Greg Garcia makes good single-camera comedies (Raising Hope, My Name is Earl). CBS Probably wants to keep a relationship with and make good with Garcia after cancelling his previous show halfway through its second season (The Millers). Chances look good

Drama
•Code Black
“A medical drama set in the busiest and most notorious ER in the nation (formerly L.A. County) where the extraordinary staff confronts a broken system in order to protect their ideals and the patients who need them the most.”
CBS is apparently on the hunt for a medical procedural. This one stars Oscar & Tony-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden (who was totally the best part of ABC’s Trophy Wife from a season or two ago). This drama is based on a documentary (yes, they adapt shows from documentaries now I guess), so y’know, prestige and shit.

•Limitless
“Follows Brian Sinclair (Jake McDorman) as he discovers the power of the mysterious drug NZT, and is coerced into using his newfound drug-enhanced abilities to solve weekly cases for the FBI.”
Yes, based on the movie

•Rush Hour
“Based on the New Line feature film trilogy, a stoic, by-the-book Hong Kong police officer (Jon Foo) is assigned to a case in Los Angeles where he’s forced to work with a cocky African-American LAPD officer who has no interest in a partner.”

•Sneaky Pete
“Upon leaving prison, a 30-something con man takes cover from his past by assuming the identity of a cellmate. “Sneaky Pete” then hides out from his debtors while working for his new “family’s” bail bond business. There, he uses his considerable charm and criminal prowess to take down bad guys far worse than himself, partnering with a very attractive female “cousin” who has her suspicions about his real motives.”

**Supergirl**
“Born on the planet Krypton, Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist) escaped amid its destruction years ago. Since arriving on Earth, she has been hiding the powers she shares with her famous cousin. But now at age 24, she decides to embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be. Based on characters from DC Comics”
CBS is the only broadcast network without some sort of superhero show. While it may sound like too many people rushing in to replicate the same thing, CBS needs to get into the game. Crime procedurals are no longer a growth market. A number of CBS’s shows and many, many of the CW’s (which CBS co-owns) comes from WB Studios and they should really take advantage of that relationship to milk the DC comics for some shows.

FOX
Fox lucked the fuck out with Empire: it gained viewership with every. single. one. of its episodes in season 1. It opened with 9.90M viewers and ended with 17.62M with a 6.9 18-49 demo rating. For those who don’t follow ratings like I do, that shit is insane. You have to go back decades to find another show with that kind of growth trajectory. With those kind of numbers, it rivals Big Band Theory, Walking Dead, hell even lower-rated games of Sunday Night Football. All this is to say, if it weren’t for Empire overshadowing the rest of their schedule, Fox would be a punching bag for rival networks as its schedule just fell apart this year. More on that when I play ‘Fantasy TV Schedule’ later on. This means Fox needs to stock up on pilots to make up for its lackluster current offerings and rebuild itself night-by-night.
Comedy
•Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life
“Celebrates the mistakes and misadventures people make during the years after college before settling down.”
Could work, could suck, I can count the number of good college-set TV shows on one hand finger

•Detour
“Inspired by the real life story of Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo, a rock star (Ben Aldridge) who made the unexpected choice at the age of 30 to quit his band and go back to college.”

•Fantasy Life
“When a hard-working guy (Kevin Connolly) lands his ultimate dream job hosting a fantasy football show, he’s forced to navigate office politics while becoming the star he never thought he could be. Based on ESPN analyst Matthew Berry’s best-selling book Fantasy Life.”
ugh, it’s a “multicamera hybrid” comedy, whatever that means. Multicamera = laugh track = shit

**Scream Queens**
(15-episode straight-to-series order for fall)
“Anthology series revolving around a college campus that’s rocked by a series of murders. New settings and storylines will be featured in subsequent seasons of the anthology series.”
For whatever reason Hollywood Reporter lumped this into the comedy section (it’s a horror-comedy apparently) though I’m assuming it’s an hour-long show

•Grandpa (aka untitled John Stamos comedy)
“Stamos stars as a version of himself: a longtime bachelor whose life is upended after he learns he’s a father and grandfather.”
The premise sounds pretty dopey, but c’mon, J. Stamos, guy’s totally likeable

Drama
•Minority Report
“Ten years after the end of Precrime in Washington, D.C., one of the three Precogs struggles to lead a “normal” human life, but remains haunted by visions the future, when he meets a detective (Meagan Good) haunted by her past, who just may help him find a purpose to his gift.”

•Lucifer
“Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, Lucifer (Rush’s Tom Ellis) resigns his throne and abandons his kingdom for the gorgeous, shimmering insanity of Los Angeles, where he gets his kicks helping the LAPD punish criminals. Based on the characters created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg for DC Entertainment’s Vertigo imprint.”

•Frankenstein
“Revolves around Ray Pritchard (True Blood’s Rob Kazinsky/Philip Baker Hall), a morally corrupt retired cop, who is given a second chance at life when he is brought back from the dead. Now younger and stronger, Pritchard will have to choose between his old temptations and his new sense of purpose.”

•Studio City
“The story of a young singer’s (newcomer Florence Pugh) path to stardom as she comes of age living with her songwriter father (Will & Grace’s Eric McCormack) — who turns out to be a drug dealer to the stars. Inspired by Krista Vernoff’s real-life experience.”

NBC
NBC will probably end up being the #1 network for the 2014-15 season thanks to airing the Super Bowl along with The Voice and The Blacklist. However, ratings have been slipping for both (especially so in the case of The Blacklist after its move to Thursday). Still, it’s been bolstered by its Chicago Fire/Chicago PD but its woes are really shown by the fact that NBC has been airing 3-4 hours of Dateline in any given week in spring. They got holes to fill.
Also, try to name a comedy airing on NBC right now. exactly.
Comedy
**Coach**
(13-episode straight-to-series order)
“Picks up 18 years after ABC’s Coach went off the air and follows a retired Coach Hayden Fox who is called back to become an assistant coach to his own grown son, who is now the head coach at an Ivy League school in Pennsylvania that is just starting up a new team.”
Ick, why

•How We Live
“An anthropologist blogger moves to the suburbs with his wife and quickly discovers the fascinating habitat and mating rituals of a new undiscovered species: his suburban friends and neighbors.”

•Sharing
“A workplace comedy about the different groups of people working side by side in a shared office space.”
I might be able to enjoy this by relating to it, but this could very well be a stinker

•Strange Calls — redeveloped from ABC in 2014, 2012
“Based on the Australian format, an affable but down on his luck young police officer is transferred to a rural town where — with the help of a peculiar, elderly night watchman — he starts to realize the town has a bizarre supernatural underbelly.”
Cast: Danny Pudi (1st position to Yahoo’s Community), Patrick Brammal, Daniel Stern, Allison Miller, Aliyah Royale
From what I’ve read, NBC execs are pretty high on this show. I like the casting, I’d made remarks about this when reviewing the pilots last year that when I watched the original Aussie version I was intrigued by what an American adaptation would look like and am more intrigued with Pudi and original Aussie castmember Patrick Brammel in it

**Telenovela**
(13-episode straight-to-series order for fall)
“A behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the making of a telenovela. Longoria leads the cast as Ana Maria, the star of Latin America’s most beloved telenovela, who strives to stay on top in a world where the drama off-camera is better than it is on-camera.”

**Untitled Jerrod Carmichael comedy**
(6 episodes)
“Inspired by the stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s life and relationships with his girlfriend and family.”

Drama
**Blindspot**
“A beautiful woman, with no memories of her past, is found naked in Times Square with her body fully covered in intricate tattoos. Her discovery sets off a vast and complex mystery that immediately ignites the attention of the FBI who begin to follow the road map on her body to reveal a larger conspiracy of crime while bringing her closer to discovering the truth about her identity.”

**Chicago Medical**
“A planted episode in Chicago Fire that focuses on characters who work at the Chicago Medical hospital.”

•The Curse of the Fuentes Women
“When a magical and mysterious young man (The Following’s Adan Canto) inexplicably emerges from the ocean, he breathes new passion into the lives of the Fuentes women — the beautiful but lonely Lola, her ailing mother Esperanza and her troubled daughter Soledad.”
Could pair well with the already-ordered ‘Telenovela,’ maybe/maybe not

**Heartbreaker**
Inspired by the life of Dr. Kathy Magliato and based on her book of the same name, Heart Matters is a medical soap that follows the outspoken Alex Panttiere (Melissa George), one of the rare female heart transplant surgeons. Alex brings an innovative eye to treating patients week to week while also balancing the complications of her professional and romantic life.

**Shades of Blue**
13-episode straight-to-series order
“Centers on Harlee McCord (Jennifer Lopez), a single mother and dirty cop recruited to work undercover for the FBI’s anti-corruption task force. Part of a close-knit unit known for its conviction record, Harlee has become compromised by her colleagues — all of whom also pitch in to help raise her daughter — and finds herself faced with the moral dilemma of working against her cop brothers in order to redeem herself.”
A lot of female-skewing shows, NBC’s making a play for more female viewers apparently, will make my potential fantasy scheduling a bit easier

•Game of Silence
“Centers on a rising attorney (Revolution’s David Lyons) on the brink of success could lose his perfectly crafted life when his long lost childhood friends threaten to expose a dark secret from their violent past. Based on the Turkish format Suskunlar.”
ehhhhhhhhhhhh

CW
The CW renewed almost its entire scripted line-up save for the almost-certainly-cancelled ‘Hart of Dixie,’ which gives it very little room to work with in ordering new shows, the CW only has 10 hours of television to program per week after all. Still, all of their pilots sound at least a little bit interesting, though the network’ll only have room to pick up one or two of them.
Drama
•Cheerleader Death Squad*
“Centers on a disgraced CIA agent-turned-teacher (Reign’s Alan Van Sprang) at a Washington, D.C., prep school. After he realizes his students have high-level access through personal connections, the teacher trains a select few to be his eyes and ears into the world of international espionage and help him earn his way back into the agency.”
c’mon, with a name like that I wanna see at least one episode

•Cordon*
“Examines what happens when a deadly epidemic breaks out in Atlanta and a large city quarantine is quickly enforced, leaving those stuck on the inside to fight for their lives. Tells the story of loved ones tragically torn apart, and how the society that grows inside the cordon reveals both the devolution of humanity and the birth of unlikely heroes. Based on the original Belgian series created by Carl Joos.”
This will probably fail in execution

•Dead People*
“A down-on-his-luck, semi-alcoholic but roguishly charming cab driver (The Walking Dead’s Andrew J. West) who, after a near-death experience, suddenly has the ability to interact with ghosts, including his late ex-wife (The Lying Game’s Alexandra Chando) who he has never gotten over.”

•Tales From the Darkside*
“Reinvention of the horror/fantasy/thriller anthology series based on the 1980s series. Each episode will feature at least one story with a completely different cast.”

•Flash/Arrow spin-off
This one’s a shoo-in, probably

Again, just because I listed a pilot here doesn’t necessarily mean I want to watch it, it’s a mix of things that sound interesting to me and also shows that could work well for their respective networks.

Last Year’s Upfront Preview:
Part 2: Pilot Preview
Part 1: Cancel/Renew