No embedded vids, because Fox is a bit backward and has stuck them all in its showreel thing, but it’s time to look at that network’s new shows for the Fall season.
I’m going to do my usual and skip the reality shows, because they’re not interesting, although I would just like you all to rush over to the Anchorwoman page to gasp in awe at the airbrushing on Lauren Jones’ picture.
So first up, because I’m feeling alphabetical today and there are a lot of shows to get through (Fox kills them all very quickly so needs a big stock to work with), is Back To You, starring Frasier Crane – sorry Kelsey Grammer – and Patricia Heaton, about a couple of news anchors (hmm, is this Fox’s programming trend: news anchors?) who reunite after a decade apart. Also features Fred Willard from Anchorman. Boy is he getting typecast.
Canterbury’s Law is a lawyer show. Yawn. It does have Dennis Leary and Mike Figgis as exec producers and a good cast, though, with Julianna Margulies off ER as the eponymous Canterbury and Linus Roache as her husband (got to have a Brit in your cast. It’s the law). Probably the only interesting thing about it is the fact Canterbury is willing to ‘bend the law’ in the interests of justice, but I’ll be surprised if this lasts more than four episodes.
I said I wouldn’t do reality TV, but it’s Gordon so I’ll make an exception. Kitchen Nightmares needs no introduction for UK viewers, but for US viewers, it’s Gordon Ramsay going into struggling restaurants and telling them how to fix themselves. It’s actually really good in its UK incarnation, but I have no idea whether the US version will work as well.
K-Ville = cop show = yawn. It’s set in New Orleans though, so maybe they can make something new with it.
First of the crop for genre fans: New Amsterdam, which is about an immortal New York police detective looking for True Love (for the unenlightened, New York was originally called New Amsterdam when it was a Dutch settlement). Although it’s about a Dutch soldier called Amsterdam as well (seriously?), the lead, Nikolaj Coster Waldau, is Danish and it’s directed and exec-produced by Swede Lasse Hallström, so clearly is the advance guard of a Scandinavian takeover of US TV.
Parker Posey gets her own show. Woo hoo? But she’s co-starring with Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under. More of a woo hoo. Basic plot: woman decides to have a baby. Can’t. So asks her sister to have it for her. Total chick show. Last Fox chick show was cancelled inside three episodes.
The Farrelly Brothers have another show. Starring no one of any real interest, it’s about “a group of newly single friends learning the painful lessons of starting over in their 30s. They’d all love to get remarried, if they could just find their true loves.” Could be good. In fact, if it is good, Fox will cancel it.
Here’s the one everyone’s been waiting for, which is why it’s only a mid-season replacement. Hmm. Starring British actress Lena Headey as Sarah Connor and that definitely not gay actor Thomas Dekker as John Connor, the show will look at the days Sarah Connor spends training her son to fight Terminators. But wait! There’s a new Terminator in town and she’s friendly. It’s Summer Glau from Firefly and The Unit. No word on what the evil Terminators are going to be like.
Again, I know I said no reality TV, but I thought I’d just point to this one at laugh. “The unscripted series will reveal how women and men react in a world where women are in charge and men are subservient, and each gender’s ability to adapt to a new social order will be put to the test. The participants will be brought to a remote, primitive location where the women will have the opportunity to ‘rule’ as they build a newly formed society – one where there is no glass ceiling and no dressing to impress.”
Now have a look at the picture. No ‘dressing to impress’? That had better be the ‘before’ rather than the ‘after’ picture or else I’m guessing some people have internalised patriarchy a little too much…
What do you reckon? Any going to go the distance?
It’s not an easy call. Take this year, for example. One show survived to be renewed for a second season, out of all of the comedies and dramas that started in Fall 2006. Want to hazard a guess which one?
‘Til Death. Yes, one of the suckiest pieces of rubbish out of the whole bunch. Now can you predict which will survive until this time next year? Thought not.
