Tomorrow is the official start of Fall television with all four networks premiering new seasons as well as three new shows including Blindspot which tops my most anticipated list. Of course with a new season comes new questions and these are the five I am most interested in:
1. What exactly is the saturation point for comic book shows? Three years ago
Arrow was the lone live action funny book on network television (and that is only if you consider The CW a network). Marvel got into the game two years with
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Things exploded last year, both of those shows got a spin-off with
The Flash and
Agent Carter respectively along with
Gotham,
iZombie, and the only one that did not make it to a second season
Constantine (but as a consolation prize the titular character is showing up on
Arrow this season). That does not even include the five Marvel Shows that are planned to air on Netflix (
Daredevil being the only one that has been released; Jessica Jones is getting released later this year). The networks have adding a couple more this season with yet another
Arrow spinoff
Legends of Tomorrow and not officially a spin-off but share the same showrunner so a crossover is possible
Supergirl. Then on Fox they are adapting
Lucifer coming mid-season.
On cable
The Walking Dead has remained the lone comic adaptation despite being the biggest show on all television (okay technically that is a graphic novel if you want to split hairs). But that is about to change too and that is not even count
The Walking Dead spin-off that is not based on a print version. AMC is developing a show based on the DC property
Preacher (ironically starring two Marvel vets Dominic Cooper, the younger Howard Stark and Raina from
SHIELD) while TNT is getting into the game with a live action
Teen Titans. While over at Syfy they have two funny books in development including a Superman prequil set on Krypton (which will likely have nothing to do with the CBS show just to make things confusing). And in addition to the Netflix series, Playstation's first scripted show
Powers was already renewed for a second season. So that is ten comic book adaptations this season on television, six on streaming sites with three coming soon to cable. Even if you only watch comic books adaptations, that is a lot of television to watch.
2. What happened to Gemma Simmons? Speaking of comic books, the biggest cliff hanger to come from one last season was what became of our favorite biochem scientist? A lot happened in the season finale of
Agents of SHIELD, Coulson had his hand cut off, the Inhumans mist thing got turned into fish oil pills, Ward was recruiting his own supervillian team, The Avengers came in and saved the day (okay the last one did not, and will never happen), but I want to know is what happened to Gemma after getting sucked into Kree obelisk? I doubt she is gone from the show and snce the obelisk is supposed to destroy Inhumans I am guessing she come out with a new superpower and possibly a new desire to kill
Skye Daisy. Of course being a Joss Whedon show, thoughts of Fred who had her body taken over by a God has also crossed my mind. Whatever it is, I am sure the scientist we knew and loved will be much different this season.
3. Will any new show be as good as Mr. Robot? The surprise hit of the summer was easily
Mr. Robot who just owned the conversation on the internet. I certainly did not see it coming as I initally had no interest in another attempt at television for Christian Slater until I learned Dalia Royce was also part of the cast. Can anything premiering this fall garner as much attention? My guess is no.
Blindspot will probably be the best new show by how long can a procedural that rips off Memento stay in the conversation. Maybe the best at reaching
Mr. Robot type hype on network television could be
Quantico which looks like it could at its best be
Homeland season four. Granted worst case scenario the show devolves into
Homeland season three.
4. How will Continuum end? Continuum was has been one of the quietly good shows on television for the past three years and the best time traveling show since
Quantum Leap. Of course it got canceled but not before airing six final fourth season episodes (two of which already aired). Evil minions from a dark future timeline showed up in the season premiere and reeked havoc on Keira. Will she finally be able to back to her time? Is there a time for her to go back to now? It will be a fun ride to see if she does.
5. Will Ash vs. The Evil Dead be any good?: We have been inundated with
Heroes Reborn promos for the last couple month leading to most people who watch the original wondering, why? The show was widely reviled with most people saying it went off the rails in the second season (I contend the first season pretty much sucked too aside from the one episode Bryan Fuller scripted). On the flip side there has been little press for a reboot that people have been hankering for decades. I remember seeing
Army of Darkness in high school thinking it was the greatest thing ever (I eventually went back to watch the two horror
Evil Dead movies but much preferred the campiness of the third movie). Pretty much ever since there have been talks of a fourth movie in the
Evil Dead saga. The closest came about a decade ago when there was talks of an
Ash vs. Freddy vs. Jason movie after the first two horror legends faced off (there have been a couple of comics and video games). There was also hope when the reboot of
Evil Dead (which featured Bruce Campbell in a post credits teaser) was released two years ago with a sequel that would see the two franchises combining with both Campbell and Tessa Altman starring. Instead at Comic Con last year Sam Raimi announced there would be a television show to continue the original
Evil Dead to air on Starz best known for... um, well, their aired
Party Down foe two seasons a couple years ago. Will it be any good? Well it is written by the Raimi brothers (Sam is directing the first episode) and Bruce is staring. As of there there seems to be no ties to the reboot as there has been no announcement of Tessa Altman's involvement, instead Xena the Warrior Princess is in the cast. Since I do not have Starz I can hear what other people say about it and can temper my expectation whenever I get around to seeing it. But as of now I am hopeful. It certainly has to be better than the the Heroes reboot or the televised versions of
Limitless or
Minority Report which both look dreadful (though I am a bit hopeful the former is successful enough for someone to greenlight a televised
Lucy show as that movie was significantly better than
Limitless; Tyra Collett as Lucy).
As the great philosopher Butt-Head once pondered, “If it weren’t for things that sucked, how would we know if something was awesome,” so here are the five least anticipated questions of the new television season.
1. Who is going to win the worst reality show this season? No I am not talking about
Dancing with the Has Beens and Never Weres or even the final season of
American Karaoke but by far the worst reality show on television this season is the Republican Primaries. Four years ago we had the clown car of candidates where nut jobs like Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann each got a week a top the polls before everyone realized just how crazy they were and just ended up nomination Mitt Romney, the human robot. Things were supposed to be different this time around after the Republican conducted an autopsy realizing they need to do a better job courting minorities and women after losing to Barack Obama again. Then Donald Trump got into the race by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and mad sexist statements about Megyn Kelly after she asked if he was sexist... and then went to the top of the Republican polls. He called war hero John McCain a loser for being captured... and rose higher. Most recently he insulted the lone woman in the race, Carly Fioarino's looks in a Rolling Stone interview... and still leads. NBC had and do the biggest troll in history by replacing him on
The Celebrity Apprentice with an immigrant who fathered an anchor baby.
Or course this is not to say go ahead and pencil in a Democrat for 2016 because their nomination process is in as much chaos, it is just a lot less entertaining. Seriously, is there a more boring scandal than Hilary Clinton's e-mails? It makes Chris Christie's bridge problems look like a scene out of Wolf of Wall Street in comparison. Unfortunately the only other Democrat who decided to run (so far) is Bernie Sanders who just come across as your crazy Jewish uncle. He is just basically the socialist Ron Paul. How depressing we have to root for Joe Biden to get into the race as the best way to avoid a President Trump or Clinton Part Deux and as we learned from Bush, the sequel is always significantly worse than the original.
2. What happened to Becca in the Elevator at the End of Hindsight? After failing at her second chance in the nineties, actually making a bigger mess of it then she did the first time around, Becca rushed to the elevator that flashed her back to the last great decade, Numb starts playing again... and fade to black. Surprisingly VH1 renewed the lowly rated show thus making wonder where the show would go in the second season. Would it go back to present day? Go back even further? Flash forward to the 00's? Then out of nowhere, late last month VH1 sent out a press release saying "nevermind, Hindsight is canceled." What? If they wanted to cancel it outright after the first season, fine, whatever, but you cannot renew it and then renig later. Renewed shows have gotten shortened before and
Southland got canned after getting renewed but that was instantly picked up by TNT, this is the first time I remember a renewed show getting canceled outright before (greenlighted shows get canned before making it to air occasionally, most recently the NBC Coach reboot). And to add insult to injury, days after canceling
Hindsight, VH1 announced
Black Ink Crew: Chicago, maybe the most befuddling decision by a network since The CW dumped
Veronica Mars only to announce
Farmer Takes a Wife shortly after.
3. Who is dumb enough to hire Carrie Mathison? I know this is a television show and it would be a boring show if Carrie was forced to get a job at the local mall because she could not get a job in defense again but no one has failed upward more than Carrie, not even Lane Kiffin or Ben Silverman. But on the new season of Homeland, Carrie finds herself with a cushy private contractors job in Germany for some millionaire.
4. Will Community be back for season seven? It was only five short years ago since DirecTV started the modern trend of saving lowly rated but beloved franchises. The trend continues this fall after Hulu saved
The Mindy Project. But the big news last year was Yahoo Screen was going to get into the scripted forum by saving
Community even though it lost yet another castmember when Shirley went to hang out with Matthew Perry (not to mention the Pierce replacement left to costar in the
Breaking Bad prequil). New episodes debuted last spring, I watched the first couple the weekend they came out but eventually forgot about it and still have two or three to watch. Yahoo Screen had said they have interest in doing another season (their two other two original comedies have yet to set the internet aflame even though the one with the AT&T girl,
Other Space, is kind of, almost watchable) except star Joel McHale has pretty much said they do not have enough money to pay the cast what they expect now that their contracts expire. I am fine with this because I really could not get up watching the show on the interest, seriously Yahoo Screen, if you want to be taken seriously, at least make a Playstation app so I can watch this on my television. Really, just make a crappy Community movie and be done with it.
Did Deacon survive his surgery? The big
Nashville cliffhanger left with Deacon's life hanging in the balance in the balance. Did he survive? Of course he did.
Here is everything I plan to watch this fall and when they premiere (and one bonus question: why is there so much television on Mondays and Wednesdays and basically nothing on Thursday?):
Mondays
8:00 - The Big Bang Theory (September 21)
8:00 - Supergirl (premieres at 8:30 on October 26, 8:00 the following week)
8:00 - Gotham (September 21, Fox)
8:00 - Switched at Birth (already started, ABC Family)
8:00 - The Voice (September 21, NBC)
10:00 - Blindspot (September 21, NBC)
10:00 - Castle (September 21, ABC)
10:00 - Legends (November 2, TNT)
Tuesdays
8:00 - The Muppets (September 22, ABC)
9:00 - Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (September 29, ABC)
10:00 - Wicked City (October 27, ABC)
Wednesdays
8:00 - Survivor: Second Chances (September 23, CBS)
8:00 - The Middle (September 23, ABC)
8:30 - The Goldbergs (September 23, ABC)
9:00 - Modern Family (September 23, ABC)
9:30 - Blask'ish (September 23, ABC)
10:00 - Nashville (September 23, ABC)
10:00 - South Park (September 16, Comedy Central)
10:30 - You're the Worst (September 9, FXX)
Thursdays
9:00 - The Blacklist (October 1, NBC)
Fridays
8:00 - Last Man Standing (September 25, ABC)
9:00 - Grimm (October 30, NBC)
11:00 - Continuum (Already Bac, Syfy)
Sundays
8:00 - Once Upon a Time (September 27, ABC)
8:00 - The Librarians (November 1, TNT)
9:00 - Homeland (October 4, Showtime)
9:00 - The Walking Dead (October 11, AMC)
10:00 - Quantico (September 27, ABC)
10:00 - The Affair (October 4, Showtime)
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
-