The Big 5 deciding what they expect us to watch this fall.
By Brandon Wolfe
Pilot season has commenced as the networks have begun their first round of pickups. NBC has ordered the dramas The Player, Chicago Med, Blindspot and Heartbreaker to series. Also in contention are Warrior, Game of Silence, The Curse of the Fuentes Women and Love Is a Four Letter Word. The network is really pinning its rebirth hopes on drama rather than comedy, the genre upon which it built an empire in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The crop given the go-ahead today will join fellow dramas Shades of Blue, Emerald City and pointless reboot/event series Heroes: Reborn in the fall.
On the comedy front, NBC has a number of prospects, including Superstore, Strange Calls, People Are Talking, a pointless small-screen reboot of Problem Child, How We Live and Cuckoo. Already ordered are Telenovela starring Eva Longoria and, yet one more pointless reboot, Coach.
Fox will be adding its television adaptation of Minority Report, with the original film’s director, Steven Spielberg, set to executive-produce, as well as Rosewood, Studio City and, possibly, Frankenstein. Comedy-wise, there’s Grinder and Grandpa, starring Rob Lowe and John Stamos, and the young-skewing Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life.
Network top-dog CBS will debut shrunken big-screen adaptations Limitless and Rush Hour, as well as its Supergirl series. Also in the mix are the medical dramas Code Black and LFE, another Criminal Minds spin-off, and Sneaky Pete, Doubt and For Justice. The comedy pilots being seriously looked at are Life In Pieces, Angel From Hell with Jane Lynch, The Half of It, and Greg Garcia’s Super Clyde.
ABC’s drama batch includes The Catch, Runner and Boom. Other pilots with a chance are The Advocate, Mix, Broad Squad, Quantico, LA Crime, Adversaries and Kings and Prophets. The TV revival of The Muppets is also a possibility, its presentation having gotten a solid reception. The comedy crop with a shot at moving forward consists of Delores & Jermaine, NBA, Chev & Bev, Uncle Buck, Dr. Ken, 46 Percenters and The King of 7B.
Finally, the CW is giving the thumbs-up to Cordon and a new Tales From the Darkside, as well as, obviously, its new Arrow-Flash spin-off series.
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