Upfronts: ABC

A little retooling with ABC, but not too much.

What's Back? What's Not? ABC brought back two mideason shows - Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23 and Scandal, but not The River or GCB (or, as we're still thankful for, Work It). Pan Am got the expected axe as well, not sure why the network let it linger for as long as it did. There's no Cougar Town, either, but it's hardly surprising as the news has been out for a while that it's likely heading to TBS.

What's New? There appear to be seven new shows on the schedule, evenly mixed between comedy and drama.

Monday brings nothing new, with two hours of Dancing With the Stars (fall) and The Bachelor (spring) leading into Castle. Boring but steady performers, as long as the bottom doesn't drop out of either reality show.

Tuesday leads with the DWTS results show, which leads into relocated Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B---- in Apt 23 at 9, with Private Practice taking the 10 pm slot. Private Practice seems to have settled in to its slot, but there's talk this might be the show's final season (with only 13 episodes ordered to boot).

Two new sitcoms replace the results show in the spring. The first is How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life), which stars Sarah Chalke as a single mom who moves back in with her parents (played by Elizabeth Perkins and Brad Garrett). Cross-generational hilarity will hopefully ensue. The other show is The Family Tools, about a son who takes over a handyman business from his ailing dad (J.K. Simmons, apparently getting comedy cred for his Farmers Insurance ads), and the family that's waiting for the son to fail based on his shaky employment history. I'm catching a bit of an Arrested Development vibe from the press release, which might be worth something if (a) the show actually shares this vibe, and (b) the actual Arrested Development wasn't coming back (even if just to Netflix).

Interesting sitcom battle brewing on Tuesdays,especially between the two hour blocks here and on Fox.

Wednesday starts with three returning sitcoms - The Middle, Suburgatory, and Modern Family.  At 10 pm we have Nashville, an All About Eve-inspired drama where an established country music star waning in popularity (Connie Britton) is set up to tour with an up and coming singer (Hayden Panettiere) in an attempt to use the newcomer's fanbase to reinvigorate her own. The newbie, of course, sees this as her opportunity to grab the spotlight and take her place as a top performer. There's also subplots involving a songwriter and the established singer's father, who is a powerful figure in Tennessee business and politics. This could work out pretty well given the cast (the dad is played by Powers Boothe, who will hopefully be as brooding and menacing as he was on 24). It can't do any worse than the last network show called Nashville.

In between all of this at 9:30 is The Neighbors. A family moves into a gated community in New Jersey that almost never has openings (the last one was 10 years ago). Once they move in, they notice some strange things involving their neighbors, such as they all have pro athlete names. A dinner party reveals the truth: the community is made up of aliens, and the new family is the first real interaction they've had with Earthlings. Wackiness ensues as we learn about the differences (men have the babies!) and, of course, just how similar we all are.

There's high concept, and then there's geostationary orbit concept.

Thursday starts with Last Resort, a Crimson Tide meets Lost affair, where a US submarine is told to fire its nuclear missiles at Pakistan, but both the captain and the XO refuse to fire without confirmation. The sub is then fired upon, and is forced to limp to a remote island, where the crew disembarks and sets up shop while trying to figure out just what is going on.

And Andre Braugher is playing the captain? I'm in.

Grey's Anatomy returns at 9, and Scandal keeps the 10 pm slot it started in.

Should be a solid night, but once again ABC puts a show at the 8 pm hour that doesn't quite sync with the rest of the night (past examples: Flash Forward and My Generation). Third time's the charm?

Friday starts the season with Shark Tank, Primetime: What Would You Do?, and 20/20. In November, 20/20 drops off the schedule, the other two shows move one hour later, and we get sitcoms in the 8 pm hour. The first is Last Man Standing, which I expect will suffer from the move. It's followed by Malibu Country, where the freshly divorced wife (Reba, who now only goes by Reba? Did I miss her ditching her last name?) of a country music legend gathers her family and moves to Southern California to jump start her own musical career, which she put on hold to raise a family. Lily Tomlin plays her mom, and Sara Rue her new Malibu neighbor. Could be family friendly, I suppose.

Saturday brings college football, until there is no more college football, at which point we'll get reruns or dead air or something.

Sunday kick off, as it has since the Clinton administration, with America's Funniest Home Videos. This is followed by Once Upon a Time and Revenge (which seems appropriately sudsy, if a little darker, than Desperate Housewives). The 10 pm hour is taken by the new drama 666 Park Avenue, the street address of an apartment building whose residents can meet their highest (or lowest) goals, ambitions and desires, just so long as they meet the demands of the building's owner (Terry O'Quinn) and his wife (Vanessa Williams). The nature of this arrangement becomes clear when a new couple moves to New York to manage the building. Sounds like a more demonic spin on Fantasy Island, but I'll tune in just to see if O'Quinn can channel the undead John Locke.

Elsewhere at midseason Body of Proof will fit in somewhere. There's also a US version of Mistresses, widow takes on the mob drama Red Widow, and a Da Vinci Code/National Treasure clone called Zero Hour that I admit I will watch because I'm a giant nerd.

Summing up. I imagine ABC will do reasonably well as long as the veteran series hold up. At least a couple of the new dramas seem promising, making up for the sitcoms, which don't sound like much to me.