CBS renews: All Rise, Bob ♥ Abishola, Blue Bloods, Bull, FBI, FBI: Most Wanted, MacGyver, Magnum P.I., NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, The Neighborhood, SEAL Team, S.W.A.T. and The Unicorn…
In the US: Thursdays, 9.30/8.30c, CBS In the UK: Not yet acquired
When it comes to sitcoms, it’s surprisingly easy and time-saving to judge a book by its cover – which is what I did with CBS’s new sitcom, Broke. Multi-camera show shot in front of an audience (or canned laughter)? Check. CBS? Check. Two disparate social groups set against one another? Check. Vehicle for a previous star of another show from the same network? Check.
Here, we have the 15-year veteran of CBS’s NCIS, Pauley Perrette, starring and producing in a show that sees her playing a single mum trying to raise her kid in her family home by working two jobs. The father, a member of a Van Halen cover band, is long gone and his child support cheques bounce.
Then, without warning, her sister (Another Period‘s Natasha Leggero) turns up on her doorstep with her über-rich Mexican-American husband (Jane the Virgin‘s Jaime Camil) and his personal assistant (Telenovela‘s Izzy Diaz), who want to stay with her for a while. While hating her sister, her fake accent and her newly acquired nouveau riche ways, Perrette is happy to see her – if only because of her money.
However, the title of the show gives the game away here – Camil’s broke.
The Good, the Broke and the Ugly
It’s certainly possible to read all of that, look at the publicity shots I’ve just used and come to the conclusion that you might prefer to blowtorch your own genitals than watch even one second of the sitcom you’ve already imagined in your mind.
Certainly, the first few minutes pre-title sequence are inauspicious. It doesn’t seem like either the cast or the director have read the script, judging by the way they deliver the lines, which often has no real relationship to how they’re written.
One moment we’re being told Leggero grew up in this family house and knows it intimately, the next she’s asking where the guest quarters are. Again, maybe if Leggero had delivered it differently, that might have worked as a putdown, but said deliberately, it just seems like the writers haven’t read their own scripts either.
Acres of mild class warfare later and you’d think that was all the show had to offer. But there are surprises to be had.
All through ‘upfronts’ week, TMINE will be revealing the new shows that are going to be hitting US TV screens from September 2019
It’s that time of year again – the ‘upfronts’. What’s that, I hear you ask?
What are the upfronts, TMINE?
It’s when all the US networks reveal to advertisers the new shows that are going to be hitting the TV screens some time from September 2019 through to nowish 2020. However, this isn’t the same as the international screenings, where buyers from TV networks around the world turn up to see what they’d like to acquire, so we won’t know what will be heading our way for quite some time.
This weekend, US TV networks killed off a whole bunch of existing shows (prompting howls of protest from their fans) and are about to commission a whole bunch of new shows (prompting howls of ‘you cancelled x for this rubbish?’ from said-same fans).
5. CBS’s upfronts
For years, CBS didn’t have to do much at the upfronts, since it was king of the ratings and could renew pretty much everything. However, for the past few years, it’s been flagging, while simultaneously doing its best to acquire a young, new vibrant (or at least under 60) audience to replace its current dying breed.
Last year, CBS went big with nostalgic remakes for the 40+ age-group, procedurals, studio comedies and minoriteams, unveiling:
Only two cancellations, then, which is probably the best strike rate of all the networks. That means that this year, CBS has less work to do. All the same, it’s still unveiled four new dramas and four new comedies, which is perhaps a sign of both ambition and the fact that a lot of its longer-running shows are starting to wind down. Or its firm expectation that a reasonable number of them are going to be cancelled by this time next year.
The newbies are:
All Rise
Bob ❤️ Abishola
Carol’s Second Act
Evil
The Unicorn
And for mid-season:
FBI: Most Wanted
Broke
Tommy
That’s more new shows for the autumn than for mid-season, which makes a nice change; there’s also only one spin-off from an existing CBS TV show, which also makes a nice change.
Want to know more and exactly when these (and the surviving old shows) will be airing? And do you want to get TMINE’s hottest of hot first takes? Follow me after the jump if at least one of those things interests you…
