ABC Fall Schedule Includes Four New Comedies
ABC announced its very comedy-heavy fall schedule today, renewing six existing comedies and adding four more (two premiering in the fall, and another two at midseason). All of ABC's current comedies will be returning next season, with the exception of Cougar Town, which has been picked up by TBS for a fourth season to air in early 2013. Modern Family, The Middle, Suburgatory, Happy Endings, Last Man Standing and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 will be joined by new fall comedies The Neighbors and Malibu Country in the fall, and How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) and The Family Tools at midseason.
The Neighbors (pictured), about a human family that moves into a suburban neighborhood full of disguised aliens, will join the popular ABC Wednesday-night comedy block (alongside The Middle, Suburgatory and Modern Family). Malibu Country, starring Reba McEntire as a divorced Southerner who moves to California, will be part of a new comedy night on Fridays along with Last Man Standing starting in November (the traditional family sitcoms airing together on Fridays conjures up memories of TGIF).
In January 2013, Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 will be joined on Tuesdays by How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life), starring Sarah Chalke as a single mother who moves back in with her free-spirited parents, and The Family Tools, about a bumbling young man taking over his father's handyman business.
Photo courtesy of ABC
Fox Fall Schedule: Three New Comedies, Two Returning
Fox announced its fall schedule today, with a new four-comedy block set for Tuesdays that will include returning shows Raising Hope and New Girl as well as new comedies Ben and Kate and The Mindy Project (pictured). One more new comedy, The Goodwin Games, is set to debut at midseason.
Ben and Kate stars Nat Faxon and Dakota Johnson as the sibling title characters, who move in together after the free-spirited Ben offers to take care of Kate's young daughter. The Mindy Project stars The Office's Mindy Kaling, who is leaving that show to play an OB/GYN trying to get her life together; Kaling is also The Mindy Project's creator. And The Goodwin Games comes from How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, and follows three siblings who have to engage in a series of ridiculous activities in order to inherit the $20 million left to them by their father.
Photo courtesy of Fox
NBC Announces Fall Schedule With Seven New Comedies
Network upfronts week, when the broadcast networks announce their upcoming fall schedules, got off to an early start Sunday with NBC revealing its schedule for next season, which includes four new comedies to premiere in the fall, and three more set for midseason. It also includes renewals for current NBC comedies The Office, Parks and Recreation, Up All Night, Whitney, 30 Rock and Community. For 30 Rock and Community, those are just 13-episode renewals (as opposed to the typical 22), and 30 Rock was initially announced as headed into its final season (although NBC now says this may not be the case).
The new shows for fall include Go On (pictured), starring Matthew Perry as a sportscaster in group therapy; The New Normal, co-created by Glee's Ryan Murphy, about a gay couple having a baby via a surrogate; Animal Practice, about a misanthropic veterinarian; and Guys With Kids, about, well, three guys with kids. Debuting at midseason are Save Me, starring Anne Heche as a woman who talks to God; 1600 Penn, about the family of the president of the United States; and Next Caller, starring Dane Cook as a foul-mouthed DJ.
Photo courtesy of NBC
NBC Picks Up Three Comedies for Fall
With network upfronts scheduled for next week, when all four broadcast networks will be announcing their line-ups for the 2012-2013 season, NBC has been getting a head start by picking up a few new shows in advance. Three of those are comedies, with one, the Matthew Perry vehicle Go On, picked up a couple of weeks ago, and the other two announced this week.
Go On stars Perry as a sportscaster dealing with grief in a group-therapy session; let's hope it fares better than Perry's underrated (and underperforming) recent ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine. The other two new comedies are Save Me, starring Anne Heche as a woman who creates miracles; and The New Normal, co-created by Glee's Ryan Murphy, about a gay male couple having a baby via a surrogate.
What does this mean for NBC's existing comedies? Deadline reports that 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Recreation and Up All Night still have chances of returning next season, although possibly with smaller episode orders. We'll know for sure on May 14 when NBC announces its full fall schedule.
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'Veep' Review
HBO's second new female-fronted comedy of the month debuts tonight at 10 p.m. EST. Veep stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the first female vice president of the United States, who tries to pursue her agenda from an ineffectual position. The show is amusing, but is it an effective political satire? Read more in my review of the show.
Photo courtesy of HBO
'Girls' Review
Indie-film sensation Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) comes to HBO tonight with the premiere of her new show Girls, produced by Judd Apatow. Does the show live up to the hype that the young, inexperienced Dunham has been generating? Read my review to find out more.
Photo courtesy of HBO
'Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23' Review
ABC's Wednesday-night comedy block gets a new show with the premiere of Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 tonight at 9:30 p.m. EST. Is it a worthy addition to the line-up? Read my review to find out.
Photo courtesy of ABC
Fox Renews 'New Girl,' 'Raising Hope'
Fox issued renewals today for comedies New Girl and Raising Hope, picking up the shows for their second and third seasons, respectively. The network has had a tough time with comedy in recent years, but New Girl has been one of the most popular new shows this season, and pairing the comedies with the waning but still strong ratings giant Glee (which also got a renewal) has helped bolster their audiences.
The announcement doesn't bode well for fellow Fox comedies Breaking In (which barely managed a second season after initially being canceled) and I Hate My Teenage Daughter (which has been pulled from the schedule, with remaining episodes to be burned off over the summer). Word on those probably won't come until the network's fall-schedule announcement next month.
Photo courtesy of Fox
'Best Friends Forever' Review
NBC continues to burn off some of its leftover shows from the 2011-2012 season this week with the debut of Best Friends Forever, tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST. Is it worth your time to watch the six episodes of this buddy comedy starring Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham? Read my review of the first episode to find out more.
Photo courtesy of NBC
'Holliston' Review
An original sitcom on horror network FearNet? Strange but true: The old-fashioned multi-camera sitcom Holliston premieres tonight at 10:30 p.m. EST on FearNet, starring horror filmmakers Adam Green and Joe Lynch as a pair of losers trying to get their lives together. It's like a relic from the early days of UPN, and not in a good way. Read my review to find out more about the horrors of this terrible show.
Photo courtesy of FearNet