Incoming Fall Premieres

The 2013-2014 network television season will soon be upon us, and it's full of ambitious projects. As much as the draw and the influence of network TV has decreased recently, with cable and web offerings taking up more and more of the spotlight, the networks are still default for the mainstream and a good barometer for the rest of the industry. So I thought I'd give you a quick rundown on the new series that I'm the most interested in keeping an eye on this year.

Sunday - NBC's midseason contender, "Believe," is a supernatural genre show. Alfonso Cuarón created this one with Mark Friedman for J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot, and that's enough to get me to take a look. It's being paired with the action thriller, "Crisis," which is firmly a maybe, because Gillian Anderson has signed on as one of the leads, but the threat of annoying teenagers is high. ABC's "Resurrection" features the dead returning, but in non-zombie form. Lots of good talent attached to that one, but it's one of those open-ended mystery shows that could just end up going around in circles..

Monday - CBS sitcoms "We Are Men" and "Mom" feature several actors I like. Jerry O'Connell, Tony Shalhoub, and Kal Penn, will be commiserating divorces in "We Are Men," while Anna Faris and Allison Janney will be a bickering mother-daughter pair in "Mom." NBC's crime serial "The Blacklist" reads kind of generic, with its evil mastermind teeming up with law enforcement to prevent major crimes, but it does have James Spader and Harry Lennix. Over on FOX, though, is the promising "Almost Human," a Bad Robot sci-fi series about a cop teamed up with a robot. Former "Fringe" writer J. H. Wyman created it, and the cast features Karl Urban, Michael Ealy, Lili Taylor, and Mackenzie Crook. And I have to at least get a look at the pilot of "Sleepy Hollow," which just sounds goddamned ridiculous, but maybe in a good way.

Tuesday - "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," the Marvel cinematic universe spinoff about the further adventures of Agent Coulson and minions, is being overseen by various Whedons and Whedon-in-laws. It's inevitable that I will watch this, having been a fan of every other Whedon TV show so far, and an unapologetic defender of "Dollhouse." Not much else on Tuesday to get excited about, but I will be reviewing FOX's "Dads," the Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi comedy that turned in a pilot that is currently causing a great deal of controversy for having a lot of racial humor involving Asian stereotypes, reportedly in extremely poor taste. Yeah, Asian Solidarity obliges me to give this one some attention. Ironically "Dads" is being paired with "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," a police comedy with Andy Samberg that is getting some of the most positive attention this season.

Wednesday - I'm cautiously excited about ABC's "Super Fun Night" sitcom with Rebel Wilson and Liza Lapira. Wilson's been great in everything I've seen her in lately, and I'm willing to give her girls-having-shenanigans sitcom the benefit of the doubt for a couple of episodes. The CW is remaking the old British kids' series, "The Tomorrow People." Sadly, it looks exactly like the typical CW young-people-with-powers show. Might get a watch for some of the cast, though. But I can't say the same for NBC's remake of the detective series "Ironside." Did we really need another "Ironside"? With Blair Underwood? Really?

Thursday - And here's where things escalate quickly. Robin Williams in CBS's "The Crazy Ones" is going head to head with Sean Hayes in NBC's "Sean Saves the World," which is leading into Michael J. Fox in "The Michael J. Fox Show" up against "Two and a Half Men." Also, Greg Kinnear's coming to FOX in lawyer show "Rake," and we're getting a "Once Upon a Time" spinoff, "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland," which looks oddly similar to "Sucker Punch" from the previews. I always liked "Alice in Wonderland" though, and this might be some good for some romance-fantasy fluff. Still, what I'm most interested in on Thursdays is finding out when "Community" and "Hannibal" are coming back.

Friday - NBC has become the go-to for genre programming on Friday nights. They'll be pairing "Grimm" first with "Dracula," from the creators and a couple of the stars of "The Tudors." I didn't like "The Tudors" much, but Jonathan Rhys Meyers is finally playing a vampire, and that should be fun. Then in the midseason we're getting the pirate series "Crossbones," from British writer Neil Cross. It also has John Malkovitch playing Blackbeard, which guarantees I will watch the whole thing, knowing nothing else about the show.

I'll be picking pilots and premieres to review from this bunch. Also, I am working on how to do similar summary write-ups for cable shows, which is more difficult because they don't have the same development schedule. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Happy watching!
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