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The Fall Harvest: New season has 20 shows competing for our attention
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A 33-year-old woman (Elizabeth Reaser) learns from a fortune teller that she must get married within the year...or stay single forever, in The Ex List, at 9 p.m. Fridays on CBS.
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Published: September 19, 2008
Though Fox and CW got an early start, the new TV season will begin in earnest next week, when NBC, CBS and ABC -- "The Big Three" to those old enough to remember when TV sets had dials -- begin showing their fall programs.
But because of the writers strike, the fall harvest is smaller than usual, with only 20 new shows in the next few months. Usually, we get about 40 new shows. But the midseason has a big crop already in development.
So will you fall for these new shows, or will they fall by the wayside? Here's a night-by-night guide to get you started….
Sundays
□ In Harm's Way (7 p.m. on CW, starting Oct. 5): This reality series follows the U.S. Coast Guard on search-and-rescue missions.
□ Valentine (8 p.m. on CW, starting Oct. 5): The mythological gods are among us and they're trying to be matchmakers. That's the premise of the midseason series Cupid, ABC's long-planned remake of a 1990s series -- but it's also the premise of this romantic comedy-fantasy, which gets a head start by being on the fall schedule. Four members of the Greek pantheon -- Aphrodite, the goddess of love; her more lecherous-minded son, Eros; Hercules; and the Oracle of Delphi -- meddle in mortal affairs.
□ Easy Money (9 p.m. on CW, starting Oct. 5): This comedy-drama, from producers who worked on The Sopranos and Northern Exposure, is set in the world of loan sharks. Laurie Metcalf stars as the family matriarch, and Nick Searcy, a Cullowhee native who attended the UNC School of the Arts, plays her husband.
Mondays
□ Worst Week (9:30 p.m. on CBS, starting Monday): A funny British series is remade into an amusing but aggravating American sitcom. Sam (Kyle Bornheimer) is a luckless guy who keeps digging himself into deeper pits as he tries to ingratiate himself to his future
in-laws (Kurtwood Smith of That '70s Show, who is a master at playing disapproving father figures, and Nancy Lenehan). This is for folks who don't find the social blunders on The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm awkward enough.
□ My Own Worst Enemy (10 p.m. on NBC, starting Oct. 13): The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde gets a makeover in this spy thriller. Christian Slater stars as two men who have the same body. One, Henry, is a dull efficiency expert living the suburban life; the other, Edward, is a government operative and trained killer. When people from Edward's life start to threaten Henry's family, Henry has to learn how to survive.
Tuesdays
□ Opportunity Knocks (8 p.m. on ABC, starting Tuesday): This game show, produced by Ashton Kutcher, travels around the country setting up shop each week in people's front yards. With neighbors and friends as audience members, family members then compete to answer trivia questions about each other.
□ 90210 (8 p.m. on CW, already on): That 1990s favorite Beverly Hills, 90210 seems so 20th century now. This modern rendition of the high-school drama has some stars from the original mixed in with a new batch of beautiful young things.
□ The Mentalist (9 p.m. on CBS, starting Tuesday): Like USA's Psych, this series focuses on a faux psychic who uses his keen powers of observation to solve crimes. Simon Baker stars as a charismatic former celebrity psychic who now works for the California Bureau of Investigation.
□ Fringe (9 p.m. on Fox, already on): The latest X-Files knockoff, this series focuses on an FBI special agent (Ann Torv) who teams up with an eccentric scientist (John Noble) and his strongheaded son (Joshua Jackson, best known for his years on Dawson's Creek) to investigate mysterious cases that may be connected.
□ Privileged (9 p.m. on CW, already on): This comedy-drama follows a Yale graduate who becomes the live-in tutor for a pair of spoiled rich girls.
Wednesdays
□ Knight Rider (8 p.m. on NBC, starting Wednesday): The talking car KITT, from the 1980s series and three previous short-lived revivals -- two TV-movies and one series -- gets another turn around the block. Now called the Knight Industries Three Thousand (it was originally Two Thousand, but that's in the past), the supercar can now change its shape and color, not just drive fast and talk in a snooty tone.
□ Gary Unmarried (8:30 p.m. on CBS, starting Wednesday): Jay Mohr -- whose edgy sitcom Action flopped on Fox years ago -- is back in a safer, but less interesting, show. He plays a divorced dad coping with an acerbic ex-wife (Paula Marshall in a thankless role) who is engaged to their former marriage counselor.
□ Stylista (9 p.m. on CW, starting Oct. 22): CW touts this series, from the producers of America's Next Top Model and Project Runway, as being what would happen "if The Devil Wears Prada was a reality show." Contestants work as assistants to Elle magazine's fashion news director to win a job at Elle, a paid lease on a Manhattan apartment and a clothing allowance for a full year.
□ Do Not Disturb (9:30 p.m. on Fox, already on): The very busy Niecy Nash (Reno 911, Clean House) and Jerry O'Connell star in this forgettable sitcom set behind the scenes at a New York hotel.
Thursdays
□ Hole in the Wall (8 p.m. on Fox, already on): Thursday is a night full of imports remade for American audiences. First up is this game show, based on Japan's Brain Wall, in which contestants try to contort themselves to fit through holes in a moving wall.
□ Kath & Kim (8:30 p.m. on NBC, starting Oct. 9): This Americanization of an Australian comedy is about a dysfunctional mother-daughter pair. Kath (Molly Shannon of Saturday Night Live) is a divorcee in her 40s trying to find Mr. Right; her daughter, Kim (Selma Blair), has recently split from her husband and needs a place to stay.
□ Life on Mars (10 p.m. on ABC, starting Oct. 9): Then there's this adaptation of a British series, which isn't about Mars; the title comes from a classic David Bowie song. An NYPD detective (Jason O'Mara) is hit by a car in modern day and wakes up in 1973. Has he traveled through time or is he in a coma and dreaming all this? The supporting cast includes Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli.
□ Eleventh Hour (10 p.m. on CBS, starting Oct. 9) And here's another show based on a British series. Rufus Sewell (in a role played in England by Star Trek's Patrick Stewart) plays a biophysicist who uses his scientific expertise to help the FBI investigate threats to national security.
Fridays
□ Crusoe (8 p.m. on NBC, starting Oct. 17): Daniel Defoe's 1719 epic is the basis for this series, which NBC describes as a mix of MacGyver, Castaway and Pirates of the Caribbean (they left out Lost). Philip Winchester stars as Robinson Crusoe, stranded on a remote tropical island and relying on his wits to survive.
□ The Ex List (9 p.m. on CBS, starting Oct. 3): This cutesy but frequently raunchy romantic-comedy follows a 33-year-old woman who gets bad news from a fortune teller. If she doesn't get married within the year, she'll stay single forever. But she's destined to marry someone she's already been romantically involved with, so she has to look up her ex-boyfriends trying to figure out which of them was Mr. Right.
Saturdays
There are no new series on Saturdays this fall, other than repeats of Knight Rider at 9 p.m. on NBC.
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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