Year: 2014

As always, bringing up the rear in the US’s upfronts week is The CW (and assorted cable channels). The CW has traditionally been associated with – and indeed has specifically targeted – young women with its shows, but thanks to the success of the likes of Supernatural and Arrow and the lack of success of The Carrie Diaries et al (as well as a little pressure from the affiliates), it is looking to get some more men watching

“As you might have noticed, it’s a very different CW,” CW Chief Mark Pedowitz says, explaining that when he started with CW in 2011, “we were the Gossip Girl network…We wanted to bring more men to the network – and to add more original programing throughout the year.” 

The means to achieve this? More superheroes. Well, The Flash, anyway. And angels and zombies. But the channel isn’t going to forget its core, so it’s also lined up Jane The Virgin. Yes, in The CW world, men like superheroes, women like programmes about women and babies. Sigh.

Anyway, here are the trailers for the Fall line-up, but we’ll have to wait to see glimpses of mid-season shows iZombie and Messengers.

The Flash (Tuesdays, 8/7c)
Produced Bonanza Productions in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros TV based upon characters published by DC Entertainment. From writer/executive producers Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, director/executive producer David Nutter and executive producer Sarah Schechter.

Jane the Virgin (Mondays, 9/8c)
Produced by CBS Television Studios. From writer/executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman, director/executive producer Brad Silberling and executive producers Ben Silverman, Gary Pearl and Jorge Granier.

CBS being CBS and not especially fussed by much, they haven’t quite got round to putting together trailers for all their new shows for this week’s upfronts presentations (unlike Fox, ABC, TNT and TBS. Admittedly, NBC was also a bit slack, but that’s more likely to be incompetence). So we’re going to have to wait to have a gander at Battle Creek, CSI: Cyber and The Odd Couple.

CBS also being CBS means that a lot of the new shows are procedurals or spin-offs from existing procedurals or are generic multi-camera comedies. But as a sign of CBS’s drop from perennial number one to number two in the ratings this year, they’ve actually put a little effort in and have some actual diversity in their new shows, too.

So after the jump, you can see Halle Berry do a Sandra Bullock and go into space in Extant, Tea Leoni do a Hillary Clinton and be the Secretary of State in Madam Secretary, Scott Bakula continue to be paid in yet another NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, Kurtzman and Orci production Scorpion about some super-geniuses who save the world for Robert Patrick, ’scariest TV show ever’ Stalker from Kevin Williamson (The Following), and inevitable CBS insult-athon multi-camera comedy The McCarthys starring yet another member of the Ritter family.

Good and the bad, guys. Good and the bad.

Continue reading “Trailers for CBS’s new shows including Extant, Madam Secretary, Stalker, Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans and The McCarthys”

Joining TNT today in putting out trailers for the Fall 2014-5 season is sister comedy channel TBS, which has three new shows lined up. Angie Tribeca is from Steve Carell and stars Rashida Jones, Buzzy’s comes from David Kohan and Max Mutchnick (Will and Grace) and stars George Wendt and Ashley Tisdale, and Your Family Or Mine has Greg Malins and Jamie Tarses exec producing, Richard Dreyfuss starring in an adaptation of an Israeli show, so the pedigree’s there – the question is whether the laughs will be, too. Trailers after the jump.

Continue reading “Trailers for all of TBS new shows: Angie Tribeca, Buzzy’s and Your Family Or Mine”

Following on from NBC, ABC and Fox, we now have the upfronts trailers for TNT’s forthcoming new shows. So after the jump, there’s trailers for: Librarians, a spin-off from Noah Wyle’s Librarian series of movies; Public Morals from Ed Burns; Jennifer Beals’s Proof; and the somewhat dire Transporter: The Series, which Cinemax couldn’t even be bothered to air.

Continue reading “Trailers for all the new TNT shows: Transporter: The Series, The Librarians, Proof and Public Morals”