Fall TV Preview
By Bert Ehrmann
September 2, 2011
For the slate of new network TV series set to start premiering this month, the future is nothing but bright. Any of these new shows could breakout and become a hit with the public, which would mean untold sums of cash for the networks that air the shows to the producers who created them to the actors that star within.
Of course, the brutal business of TV means that while each season many new TV series premier at the start of the year only a few will be left and the end and even fewer will make it to a second season.
Premiering Wednesday, September 14 at 10, with a regular time of 8 starting September 21, is the comedy Up All Night on NBC. Up All Night follows Christina Applegate and Will Arnett off the lamented and short lived Running Wilde, as two new parents who are trying to maintain their relationship, careers and go-go lifestyle while at the same time raising a baby.
Already courting controversy in title and subject matter alone is The Playboy Club, which premiers on Monday, September 19 at 10 on NBC. Seemingly a cross between Mad Men and The Sopranos, The Playboy Club reportedly deals with the women who worked at the Playboy Club in Chicago in the 1960s who mixed with entertainers, corrupt politicians and mobsters.
The creators of the Charlie's Angels TV reboot must desperately want to buck the trend that happened to other remake series like Knight Rider, Bionic Woman and V—cancellation. Like the original Charlie's Angels and the two movies, this remake follows the exploits of three women who excel at being gorgeous and kicking the butts of the baddies. Charlie's Angels premiers Thursday, September 22 at 8 on ABC.
Another remake series this season is Prime Suspect, which premiers Thursday, September 22 at 10 on NBC. Prime Suspect was originally a beloved and long-running British crime series that originally starred Helen Mirren as a female detective surviving the rigors of living and working in a once male dominated field. The remake stars Maria Bello (A History of Violence) in the Mirren role.
Like The Playboy Club that almost certainly owes its existence to Mad Men is the series Pan Am, premiering Sunday, September 25 at 10 ABC. This series follows the beautiful and glamorous stewardesses of the now defunct Pan Am airlines during the 1960s as they navigate the rigors of, according to ABC, "Passion, jealously and espionage." Yes, having a series set in the sky during the wild and wacky 1960s isn't enough, the creators of the show had to throw "espionage" into the mix.
The most talked about series of recent memory, and not all in good ways, is Terra Nova, which premiers on Fox Monday, September 26 at 8. I'll talk more about Terra Nova in my next column, but this series that deals with time travel and dinosaurs was supposed to premiere last May as a TV movie but was pulled at the last minute and rescheduled for this fall as the special effects needed for Terra Nova proved to be too time consuming to complete in time. Which begs the question; if the creators of the show can't produce a single episode of the series to air in May, how are they going to produce 13 episodes to air this fall?
This fall there is not one but TWO series to deal with creatures from children's stores of ole', Grimm and Once Upon a Time. Grimm, as in Grimm's Fairy Tales, follows a detective who learns that the creatures from fairy tales are real and that he is in fact a hunter of these beasts.
Once Upon a Time follows a woman who finds out that she might just really be the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming from an alternate world. I'm not sure, but wasn't that a storyline from the original Star Trek TV series?
Grimm premiers Friday, October 21 at 9 on NBC and Once Upon a Time Sunday, October 23 at 8 on ABC.