Upfronts 2009 - NBC

It's that time of year again, when the network bring in the advertisers and try to con them into buying air time during the coming year's programming. NBC kicked things off today with an announcement about the shows that will make up its 2009-10 season, but not the tentative schedule (that's coming later this month, which is when most of the other networks are scheduled to make their announcements).

Anyway, here's what the Peacock has on tap.

Old Shows - NBC announced most of their pick-ups earlier in the year, but we did learn that both Heroes and Medium will be back, while Chuck and My Name is Earl are getting the boot. It would not have surprised me if things went the other way around, though, as none of these shows set the world on fire this season.

I'm also interested to see that Law & Order: SVU is back, but there's been nothing said yet about the original. I assume it'll be back, though I could see it being held to plug a hole somewhere.

Knight Rider, Kath & Kim and Life are all also missing from next season's offerings for the time being, though out of the three I figure only Life might find its way back on the schedule, though I doubt it given that they're bringing Southland back.

New Shows - Most notable here is Jay Leno's new show that'll air each weeknight at 10 pm. I can't say I'm particularly interested (I can't recall the last time I watched a full episode of the Tonight Show), but I figure it will do reasonably well, or at least be cost-effective. I still think this is also motivated by NBC's inability to find solid dramas. They're happy to limp along with the L&O franchise and partner with DirecTV to keep Friday Night Lights afloat, but the vast majority of NBC's hour-long shows haven't been the most inspired offerings.

Which leads us to Parenthood, a second attempt at bringing the 1989 movie to the small screen. This one may go better than the first attempt, as the cast includes Maura Tierney, Peter Krause, Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer also appear to be involved (or have at least allowed their names to be used in conjunction), so their input may also help. Still, it's a show based on a 20 year old movie. I expect next season we'll get a bold, contemporary re-imagining of Mrs. Miniver.

Still, this looks better than the other three dramas:

• Trauma is the latest attempt to center a drama around paramedics, which hasn't been successful since Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe played EMTs on Emergency! - in the 1970s.
• Mercy is Grey's Anatomy if the female doctors were nurses. There's even a new doctor for the lead nurse to get entangled with, as if we weren't already sick of the same thing going on at Seattle Grace Hospital.
• Day One follows a group of people who all live in the same southern California apartment building when a "global catastrophe" plays havoc with the infrastructure that keeps us alive. I'm assuming the episode where one of the building-mates gets eaten by the others will kick off fall sweeps.

NBC also announced two new comedies. One, Community, is about the wacky goings on at a community college. I'm leery of college-based shows, as they tend not to do well, but this may do OK buried among the other returning comedies. Even if the cast includes Chevy Chase. The other sitcom 100 Questions, is a romantic comedy where the female lead recounts humorous anecdotes that related to one of the titular questions, which make up a survey offered by a dating site the lead is joining. Ugh.

There are also three unscripted shows in the mix, which I won't bother to describe, though one features self-help guru Anthony Robbins. He's either five years too late to the party or will single-handedly revive the reality genre (and I can tell you which way it's going to go on my series of eight one-hour cassette tapes, on sale for a bargain price of $149.95).

Prognosis - somewhat unclear without seeing how the shows are going to be scheduled, but there's not much here to catch the eye.