Are You Falling in Love With the New Fall Lineup?

I may not watch as much television as I once did or organize my watching schedule with as much vim and vigor, but one thing that I will always get a kick out of is trying to figure out what exactly a new show is going to be about and whether or not I will watch it or even like it before it airs. The best way to do this is to pick apart and basically gawk at the promos and ad material that gets out in advance from the network.

I’ll start with an ad that is currently airing for a new show that I would have absolutely watched based on it’s tagline: “Chase” is a lightning-fast drama that drops viewers smack into the middle of a game of cat-and-mouse as a team of U.S. Marshals hunts down America’s most dangerous fugitives.” (& I liked that other show about U.S. Marshals…) But then these creeeeeeepy ads began to run. I can’t even link to the ad they creep me out that much. I get the premise: let’s pair up “the hunted with the hunter”- but they remind me of these old credit card commercials talking about fraud protection. Skeeve city.

I can dig the edgy, but I would have dug edgy served another way. Hopefully there will be a new ad soon. (please)

The next promo ad from NBC makes me want to buy Jason Ritter a puppy. I mean I already feel for the guy because of the tragic and sudden cancellation of Joan of Arcadia, but I don’t get “high-octane conspiracy thriller” looking at those sad, sad eyes. And I know as soon as my Mother sees it there will be comments about why he couldn’t shave. She would very much like the between shaves look to end soon. Maybe that is The Event that is going to happen. Um…

I can’t quite figure out how I feel about this next promo ad from the new NBC show Undercovers. It almost seems to cancel out all of the hype that was already in play. A new show- from J.J. Abrams, with a plot that is kind of like Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and starring actors that aren’t quite well known, but should be and OH MY WORD have you seen Steven Bloom’s eyes??? So the ad feels forced, in your face maybe? Over sell, right? The BOLD red is to detract you from not recognizing the stars. But in case you do recognize them we are going to do everything we can (his eyes go there, her arms rest there, her pleather jumpsuit opens there) to get you to look at her assets.

Switching over to CBS is, ha, like switching over to a whole new network. Their new shows for the Fall are classic CBS: a little sit-com, a little controversy, and an hour long show!

For the sit-com they are serving us a new show called Mike & Molly. And fine, you can totally call me out to being 100% predisposed to loving this show because Sookie from Gilmore Girls is on it. I owe her at least one viewing. The photo had me do a little fist pump for the big people because it stars, clearly, two plus sized actors. And while it isn’t always hard for a plus sized actor to get a gig as The Husband, unless you are coming off the fumes of a stand-up career in the late 80′s, if you are a plus sized actress it’s hard to get a break. The really interesting thing is that the premise of this show, the meet-cute, is that it seems to be a LOT about weight and size and eating and all that fun stuff. This is a case where the actress made me say, “yes!”, the ad made me go, “meh”, and reading the about page made me go, “ooooooh”.

$#*! My Dad Says is a show that I don’t have that much interest in. I love the twitter stream. I love the idea of the show. I crack up that she show is going to air on CBS. But hearing that William Shatner was playing the dad? Sigh. Captain Kirk in a bathrobe being wackadoodle and maybe trying to get me a deal on airfare and a hotel room in Fresno seems off-key. I DO love that CBS says that $#*! is pronounced as “Bleep”. That is kind of brilliant. And maybe a show about a blogger can’t be too awful….heh. (Let me know if you are looking to expand this blogger/tv show deal thing, CBS.)

As for the new hour long show Hawaii Five-O isn’t technically new, it is being called a “Re-imagining”. Ok. I’ll go with that. Really I think it should be called “we love Hawaii and there are actors that didn’t want to move after Lost wrapped so let’s see if we can get a show up and running down here pronto.” I also find this photo associated with the show a bit off. It does a good job of setting up the locale- gotcha! Hawaii! But what’s the deal with three adult men standing next to a teenage girl in need of a sandwich or four? And I’m sure the Cosmo article is decades old now, but am I the only one that remembers that article about how to tell if a man is thinking about sex? Hands in pockets…..um. This photo from the show is clearly not meant to draw a viewer like me (female) into the show. I’m ok with that. I think.

Over on ABC they are all about the catchy titles for their new Fall shows.

(since all of the links on ABC autostart to television content I won’t be linking to them, but their full lineup can be found online.)

Better With You has a pretty standard presentation when it comes to their show art. Let’s get all of the actors together, get them into hair and makeup and everyone look up here at this bunny and smile. I found a lot of examples of their ad and then I found the one I am sharing- which is also released from ABC. I had no earthly clue what the show was about before now. I recognized a few of the actors, assumed it was a show about a big family, maybe siblings? I read the about page on ABC and have learned that it is about an OOPS relationship. Now look at that photo. Who’s going to have the oops?

The next new show from ABC is Off the Map. Which should be an easy sell, right? The creators of Grey’s Anatomy are getting together to bring you a FEEL GOOD medical drama. No more of that dark and twisty stuff you had to sit through in Seattle. This time they want you to go to the South American Jungle. And looking at this photo you learn the following: people wear a lot of pastels in South America, there is no humidity in South America, wow Meryl Streep’s daughter looks so much like her, and could it be? Shonda is bringing a Doogie back with the kid in yellow? (mostly I’ll watch because it will feature more music to ask LJ to download for me)

In the, “did an intern name this show” category comes Happy Endings. ABC says it’s a show about what happens to the friends in a divorce. The weird thing is that the promo photo is super lame and obvious, the promo write up- ditto. But the actual little loop that ABC runs while I read the about page (the page that I am not linking to because it autoplays) kind of has me cracking me up. So that’s unusual. Awful name of a show (seriously), cheesy photo, uninspired about page…but whoever put the promo video together has convinced me to give this series at least one viewing.

I wasn’t sure FOX wasn’t going to give us anything new beyond American Idol but there are two new shows that they are beginning to advertise.

Running Wilde stars two people that I would probably watch in anything. Felicity, I mean Kerri Russel, is just one of those actresses that I will always be invested in. We basically went to college together, ok? And Will Arnett? Well I love him because he had the good sense to marry Amy Poehler and name his first born son Archie. The promo ads for this show are cracking me up- they are just so bizarre. But I guess when you have a love story with this cast bizarre was inevitable. Something interesting I learned today? The show will be told through the perspective of a 12 year old girl. Huh.

But perhaps the most head scratching cast photo award deserves to go to Fox’s Raising Hope. Bleep! Is that Cloris Leachman? And wait just a minute. *rubbing eyes* MARTHA PLIMPTON?? It’s all just too much for my eyes. I can’t take it. The plot line (which is sort of like a modern day Raising Arizona but oh so not) isn’t grabbing me but the chance to see Martha and Cloris in a “family comedy” has me very interested.

I’m sure that by the end of the month all new promo shots will be online and all new ads will be circulating the web and running in between the reruns we are watching now. It will be interesting to see if any of these shows change up their approach between now and premiere week. Take our poll so we know which shows to watch with you!

Share in the comments which new shows look the most promising and which one looks like it will be canceled first. Heads up: Next week we will be talking about the shows returning to the Fall lineup.

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Tagged as: ABC, Better With You, Bleep my Dad Says, Chase, FOX, Happy Endings, Hawaii Five-O, Mike & Molly, NBC, Off the Map, Raising Hope, Running Wilde, The Event, Undercovers