Up Fronts: NBC

It's that time of year again, when the broadcast networks put their 2013-14 schedules into shape in the hopes of selling lots of ad time. First up this week is NBC.

Who's Staying? Who's Going? If you liked a first season show on NBC this season, I hope you didn't like it too much. Only two new shows made it to a second season, Revolution and Chicago Fire (which is getting a spin-off). Perhaps the only surprising cancellation was Rock Center with Brian Williams, which wasn't doing all that well but gave the network a chance to fill time with some news-entertainment synergy.

As for what's staying, I have to give the network kudos for renewing Community. It seemed like a goner after Dan Harmon left and the season premiere was bumped from October to February, but between the critical support, small but intense fanbase, and the retirement of 30 Rock and The Office, there's a sensibility in keeping it around.

The other surprise renewal for me was Parenthood, though being on the same night as The Voice must have helped.

What's Coming?

You schedule for the week starting in the fall:

Monday - The Voice takes two hours and leads into The Blacklist, about a long-time figure on the FBI's Most Wanted List (played by James Spader), who turns himself in with an offer to catch a terrorist, with one condition: he will only work with newly-trained FBI profiler Liz Keen.

To me this sounds like a combo of 24 (rogue government agent, super bad guys) and The Following (the one on one relationship between criminal and agent with a heavy dose of mystery), which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I do wonder how quickly they'll catch the terrorist and this will become a bad guy of the week procedural. Depends how long Spader's blacklist really is.

Tuesday - All returners, with The Biggest Loser, The Voice results show, and Chicago Fire. At midseason we jettison The Biggest Loser for two sitcoms. The Family Guide is told in flashback form (Jason Bateman filling in for Bob Saget), recapping from a son's perspective how his parent's divorce let the members of the family discover who they really are. The parents are a pair of eccentrics played by J.K. Simmons (he's blind but still does all the dad stuff, with Bateman's 11 year-old character as his wingman) and Parker Posey. Curious, but the description makes it sound like it's trying too hard.

The other show is About a Boy, which is based on the Nick Hornby book and ensuing movie. It might as well be called One and a Half Men.

Wednesday - Revolution starts the night (which I think is a mistake, it's not strong enough to start an evening, and the earlier hour will likely dial back the action), followed by Law & Order: SVU, and finishes with Ironsides, a remake of the Raymond Burr original about a paralyzed police detective (played now by Blair Underwood) who, with the help of a hand-selected team, takes on the tough cases and puts the bad guys away.

I'll admit to loving the original show (I love old cop shows), but am leery of how this will go given the fate of other remakes in the recent past. I'm also wondering how well the show will work outside of the backdrop of the 1960s, where having a woman and an African-American in detective roles was pretty rare.

Thursday - opens with Parks and Rec, and then comes the onslaught of family sitcoms. We have:

* Welcome to the Family, where two recent high school grads find out they're expecting. One family is white, the other Hispanic. Cross-cultural hilarity ensues. I'd like to call it a remake of Condo but I think I'm the only person who remembers that show. It would explain why networks keep trying to make a sitcom with this premise. Too bad, too, as I like the cast.
* Sean Saves the World, where Sean Hayes plays a divorced gay dad who has his teenaged daughter move in full-time. Life-work balance hilarity ensues. There's also a pushy mom played by Linda Lavin. Snore.
* The Michael J. Fox Show has its namesake playing a news anchor set to return to work after taking time off to be with family and fight Parkinson's Disease. Work-life-incurable neurological illness hilarity ensues.

I'm hoping Fox's show pans out, for obvious reasons.

The night ends with Parenthood, which confirms that NBC isn't looking to rebuild its Thursday night ratings juggernaut. It seems like a fine show - I've seen an episode or two - but carrying Thursday night is beyond its powers.

Friday - it's fantasy night on NBC, starting with Dateline and Grimm and leading to the new 10 pm show, Dracula. Which, as you might imagine, is about a vampire. In this case, Drac has moved to London in the late 19th century to find the people who made him undead and make them pay. He's also into science and stuff, apparently.

At midseason the blood sucker moves aside for Crossbones, which stars John Malkovich as Blackbeard. This is really going to be awesome or horrific. Or awesomely horrific. Too bad it's been put in the sci-fi/fantasy ghetto.

Saturday - repeats

Sunday - football, then at midseason we get American Dream Builders (aka Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 2.0), Believe (a show about a kid with all sorts of supernatural mental powers and the group that protects her from those looking to exploit her powers), and Crisis (the kids of various DC power brokers are kidnapped while on a school trip, forcing their parents to cross wits with the mastermind of the kidnapping).

Unscheduled at this point are Community (which I assume will fill in for whatever Thursday night show first gets the axe), Chicago Fire spin-off Chicago P.D. (which, in Dick Wolf style, will eventually spawn Chicago EMT, Chicago Health Inspector and Chicago Sealer of Weights and Measures), a very generic-sounding dude sticom (The Undateables), a very generic-sounding medical drama (The Night Shift), a cross between Millionaire and Big Brother (The Million Second Quiz), and a show that might as well be called Master Top Chef (Food Fighters).

The Verdict?

It's not horrible, especially by recent NBC standards. Sunday (during football season), Monday and Tuesday look like they'll do well, though I'm worried NBC is running The Voice into the ground. The problem day for me is Wednesday, especially if Thursday and Friday trade in ratings for critical/genre success. I like Revolution but don't think it's at the point where it can lead off a night.

It's also hard to say without having seen any of them, but it feels like NBC is still trying the "broader" sitcom approach, albeit not quite as broad as, say, Animal Hospital. Michael J. Fox's show is the wild card here, I think.