What's Cancelled? The only relatively new cancellations are The Mindy Project (which was announced last week, with the potential that Hulu may pick it up) and The Following.
The New Lineup:
Monday: Gotham opens the night, followed by Minority Report, a TV version of the movie where one of the precogs has secretly returned to fighting crime, aided by a cop with a troubled past. They're once again trying to prevent crimes before they happen, so sort of a Person of Interest without the computer. I would have more faith in this if Fox had a better track record with shows set in the future.
Monday will also see the return of The X-Files in January.
Tuesday: is all new, and opens with a pair of sitcoms. Grandfathered stars John Stamos as a bachelor who learns that he's not only a father, but a grandfather. He then has to balance his new family with his work family, and work out the love lives of his son and himself. This is followed by The Grinder, in which a TV lawyer (Rob Lowe), finding his show cancelled, moves home to work in his family's law firm, to the consternation of his brother (Fred Savage) and father (William Devane). I find the latter show more interesting than the former.
The following hour gives us Scream Queens, Ryan Murphy's follow-up to Glee. An elite sorority is forced to open its pledge process to all students, which apparently causes a killing spree. We'll get another body each week until the killer is found, or something. I'm dubious about this one, if only because of how Glee wandered for most of its run.
New Girl returns later in the year, followed by a new comedy, The Guide to Surviving Life. The new show follows a group of young people who are living together for the first time. Probably a good match for New Girl and for viewers who don't remember Friends.
Wednesday: Opens with Rosewood, in which a brilliant private pathologist (Morris Chestnut) uses his sophisticated lab and skilled assistants (his sister and her fiancee) to find clues that the Miami PD missed. Which leads me to wonder why the Miami PD doesn't just have him do their autopsies to begin with. And there's a detective with her own inner demons for him to clash with, of course.
This is followed by Empire, which doesn't seem like the most natural combination.
Thursday: Bones, followed by Sleepy Hollow in a new time slot.
Friday: Masterchef Junior, follwed by the clip show World's Funniest.
Saturday: college football
Sunday: unchanged, notable in that midseason comedy The Last Man on Earth will return in the 9:30 slot after Family Guy.
Midseason?
*Lucifer, based on a comic book where the fallen angel moves to Los Angeles to punish bad guys, although living in LA means he's not keeping the peace in Hell, which may allow evil beings to escape (from a hellmouth?). Seems very Buffy/Angelish.
* The Frankenstein Code, where a septugenarian sheriff is killed by mobsters but brought back to life by a couple of thirtysomething techies, with some unpredictable superpowers thrown in to boot. I assume the reanimated lawman is not afraid of fire?
* Bordertown, an animated comedy from Seth MacFarlane set in a town on the US-Mexico border. Which I assume will allow him to use all of the jokes left over from The Cleveland Show, only edited to be about Mexicans.
We're also getting a live version of Grease, as Fox horns in on NBC's territory. And, as noted pretty much everywhere, American Idol will return for its final season.
Thoughts?
Seems like Fox is betting heavily on sci-fi/fantasy themed programming, which hasn't quite worked out for them in the past. But if they can embrace it, and give shows time to develop, it could work out very well for them. And while there may be derivative notes in some of the new shows, they are at least for older shows that may not be as familiar to current 18 to 34 year olds; it's new to them!
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