2021 New Fall Season – Thursdays

old-tv-set1Thursday night was traditionally the busiest night of the week for my television viewing habits, but has fallen off over the past couple of years.  This year is no exception.  Here’s what’s on the slate for this season.

7:30

The Blacklist – The show continues on for a ninth season 9 without Megan Boone’s Elizabeth Keene for some reason.

8:00

Ghosts – Rose McIver stars in this adaptation of a BBC show about a couple who think they are getting a beautiful country house but instead find it is falling apart and haunted.

Grey’s Anatomy – Old friends are supposed to return for the medical drama’s 18th season, with Kate Walsh and Abigail Spencer announced to show up.

9:00

Big Sky – I still haven’t watched the second story of season one, so season two may need to wait.

NBC Upfronts

the_blacklist_-_keyartThanks to Sunday Night Football and the Winter Olympics, NBC is finishing this season as the number 1 network in the coveted 18-49 demographic.  Without the Olympics, things will not be as easy in the fall, so the network did some major upgrades, dropping poor performers like Community and Revolution and bringing in new shows starring the likes of Katherine Heigl, Debra Messing, and Kate Walsh.

The Blacklist, the one breakout scripted hit from last fall for NBC, returns to Mondays for the fall, before moving to Thursdays in the February after getting the post-Super Bowl slot.  It will be replaced by State of Affairs, Heigl’s return to television as a CIA analyst who advises the president.  Casey Wilson and Ken Marino team up for the new comedy Marry Me, slated for Tuesdays.

NBC looks to have abandoned the Must See TV concept on Thursday, replacing the first hour of comedy with a new season of The Biggest Loser.  Two new comedies, Bad Judge, starring Kate Walsh, and A to Z, featuring the charming Cristin Milioti, follow it, at least until The Blacklist moves in the spring.  Parenthood will return for an abbreviated 13 episode final season.  Fridays see a new adaptation of DC’s Constantine, one that will hopefully make everyone forget about the Keanu Reeves film.

Not on the schedule yet are the final season of Parks and Recreation and a third season of Hannibal, plus new shows including Mr. Robinson, starring Craig Robinson as a musician forced to work as a substitute teacher, One Big Happy, a comedy starring Elisha Cuthbert as a gay woman who decides to have a baby with her best friend, right before he falls for a new woman, Emerald City, a miniseries re-imagining characters from The Wizard of Oz, and, of course, the previously announced Heroes Reborn.

There doesn’t appear to be much that I will be watching on NBC in the fall, and even less once Parenthood comes to an end.  I may end up trying some of the new shows, and hopefully they will be worth the effort.

Post Mortem – Private Practice

privatepracticeThe Grey’s Anatomy spinoff came to an end in January after 6 seasons.  Star Kate Walsh announced that she was leaving after the 13th episode of the 6th season, and Tim Daly had already been dropped due to budget cuts, so ABC and creator Shondra Rhimes decided to give the show an abbreviated final season and call it quits after 13 episodes.  The sixth season was a bit of a departure for the show, with overlapping episodes that took place over the same longer periods of time, but episode focused on one character or set of characters.

To be honest, had this not been the final season, there was a good chance I would have cut bait and stopped watching the show altogether.  It wasn’t a bad show, but it never reached the pinnacles that it’s sire did and it had a tendency to just kind of be.  There was hardly a convincing argument to be made for why one must watch the show, nor could one be made for one why one shouldn’t.  It was just on, and, sometimes, that is good enough for six seasons.

2012 New Fall Season – Tuesdays

It’s time to take a look at the Tuesday night offerings for this season.

7:00

Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.

7:30

Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour.  I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.

8:00

Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad.  Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.

New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits.  The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.

Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season.  The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.

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