What To Watch This Fall
It’s Here! 20 New Fall Shows You’ll Definitely Love (or Maybe Hate)
A snarky preview of 20 new TV shows: which ones you should watch (the reboots) and skip (most of the rest)
It’s September, the leaves are beginning to turn, and football has taken over our lives once again. And that can only mean one thing: FALL TV PILOT SEASON IN AMERICA IS HERE WOOOOOOO!!
The pitch: Okay so it’s not actually that exciting, regular TV isn’t very good anymore, and 90% of these shows will get cancelled. But who cares!! The world is our oyster, so let’s look around and see what’s new on TV this fall.
Read if you like: TV… Humor… Nihilism… Learning new things… Being too cheap to pay for your own Netflix account after your girlfriend broke up with you… Saving countless hours wasted on terrible shows that were doomed to start with… Finding this year’s This Is Us or Atlanta…
Shows are rated from 1 to 5 stars (★). All times Eastern.
Mondays
★★ 9JKL
8:30–9pm, CBS, October 2
The pitch: The newly divorced doctor from Royal Pains moves into apartment 9K right between his parents and his brother’s family. Hijinks ensue!!
Watch if you like: Mark Feuerstein… family drama… rich white people in extravagant New York apartments… unrealistic comedies “based on real life”
Skip if you: Prefer to watch Monday Night Football kick off
★★★ The Gifted
9–10pm, FOX, October 2
The pitch: That one vampire from True Blood realizes his seemingly ordinary children have superpowers as part of Marvel’s ever-expanding universe!!
Watch if you like: Marvel… X-Men… Marvel’s X-Men universe… Knock-off X-Men characters… secretly thinking your children are superheroes
Skip if you: Think Polaris, Eclipse, and Blink sound more like PAC-MAN ghosts than X-Men characters you’ve ever heard of
★ Me, Myself & I
9:30–10pm, CBS, September 25
The pitch: The chubby curly-haired dude from SNL was alive in 1991 and will be in 2042, and we’re going to tell his story simultaneously in all three!!
Watch if you like: Bobby Moynihan… three mediocre shows in one… Night Court’s John Larroquette… being best friends with Steve Urkel (Jaleel White)… needlessly skipping Oxford commas
Skip if you: Lost trivia night because you were supposed to know what 5-time Emmy-winner plays future Bobby Moynihan in MM&I and had never heard of John Larroquette
★★★★ The Good Doctor
10–11pm, ABC, September 25
The pitch: House, but as an autistic kid played by Norman Bates!!
Watch if you like: House… Freddie Highmore… Stories about children with autism… House, but replacing his cynicism with innocence and optimism
Skip if you: Wish the makers of House would’ve stopped making TV instead of trying to replicate their success
★★★ The Brave
10–11pm, NBC, September 25
The pitch: Homeland, but in real life!! American military heroes come together to execute complex operations and save the world
Watch if you like: U.S. military… America… freedom… heroes… thinking the idea of Anne Heche as a Director of Intelligence is hilarious
Skip if you: Think that either these military operations will be unrealistic or that maybe we should stop airing American intelligence on national TV
Tuesdays
★★★★★ This Is Us (season 2)
9–10pm, NBC, September 26
The pitch: The story of three “triplets” as children and adults in a genuinely heartwarming story of life and love and family!!
Watch if you like: Television, like even a little bit… watching good shows everyone is talking about… great acting and storytelling… 10x Emmy nominees… Parenthood… parenthood… having a good cry once every week
Skip if you: Don’t have a soul
★★★★★ The Mick (s2)… Brooklyn Nine-Nine (s5)
9–9:30, 9:30–10pm, FOX, September 26
The pitch: The funniest hour on television this fall!!
Watch if you like: Sweet Dee nannies the insufferable Pemberton kids and the gang get into hilarious shenanigans on The Mick… Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, and the best comedy cast on TV give brilliant cold opens and a fantastically funny show at police precinct Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Skip if you: Are watching This Is Us live and set your DVR to watch later
★★★★ The Mayor
9:30–10pm, ABC, October 3
The pitch: A young rapper runs for mayor as a publicity stunt but is shocked when he is actually elected. Hijinks ensue!!
Watch if you like: Brandon Michael Hall… a young Black rapper taking seriously his unexpected opportunity to affect his community for good
Skip if you: Didn’t like Rachel from Glee or Shirley from Community
★★ Kevin (Probably) Saves the World
10–11pm, ABC, October 3
The pitch: The Parenthood English teacher’s boring life is interrupted by angel Cristela who will help him (try to) save the world!!
Watch if you like: Jason Ritter… Cristela Alonzo… invisible angels only the main character can see or hear… the end of the world (as we know it)
Skip if you: Wish they stuck with the original name The Gospel of Kevin
★★★★ Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
10–11pm, NBC, September 26
The pitch: Carmela Soprano shamelessly makes an Emmy push as lead attorney for the Menendez brothers in a high profile 1994 trial!!
Watch if you like: Edie Falco… American Crime Story knock-offs… Law & Order… Learning the details about the brothers accused of shooting their parents with a shotgun in a horrific 1989 double murder
Skip if you: Already know the outcome of the Menendez brothers trial and they like totally did it, so like, why would you watch a show about it??
★★★★ The Last O.G.
10:30–11pm, TBS, October 24
The pitch: The return of Tracy Morgan as an ex-con released from prison after 15 years to find that everything has changed!!
Watch if you like: Director Jordan Peele… Get Out… Tracy Morgan… Cedric the Entertainer… using learned prison skills to cope with real life
Skip if you: Don’t appreciate Jordan Peele and Tracy Morgan for some reason
Wednesdays
★★★ SEAL Team
9–10pm, CBS, September 27
The pitch: Booth from Bones leads an elite Navy SEALs on high stakes military missions!!
Watch if you like: Bones… the highest level of American military operations… the people that captured Osama bin Laden
Skip if you: Once had your hand bit off by a loose seal and have been haunted ever since
★★★★ Dynasty
9–10pm, CW, October 11
The pitch: Jake from Melrose Place and Grace from UnREAL reboot the classic 80s soap that had the whole country buzzing
Watch if you like: Remakes of 24-time Emmy-nominated shows your parents watched in the 80s… great soapy shows by the guy (Josh Schwartz) that did The O.C. and Gossip Girl
Skip if you: Can’t find CW in your channel lineup
Thursdays
★★★★★ Superstore (s3)… The Good Place (s2)… Great News (s2)
8–8:30… 8:30–9… 9:30–10pm, NBC, September 28
The pitch: NBC Thursday comedy night is back. Watch them all!!
Watch if you like: Ugly Betty and Ginsburg work at a hilarious Walmart knockoff in Superstore… Veronica Mars accidentally gets sent to heaven but Sam Malone’s in charge and can’t do anything right in The Good Place (watch season 1 first!!)… Tina Fey returns to TV as the fictional and real-life executive producer of the Great News TV program in the vein of 30 Rock
Skip if you: Are too busy watching Young Sheldon and The Orville instead and don’t have any room in your life for laughter or happiness
1/2 ★ Young Sheldon
8:30–9pm, CBS, November 2
The pitch: Sheldon as an insufferable unsociable kid, because we didn’t already have enough of that in Big Bang Theory!!
Watch if you like: Big Bang Theory… Jim Parsons… the kid (Iain Armitage, even his name is insufferable) from Big Little Lies… the worst kid ever
Skip if you: Have any self respect whatsoever
Note: Young Sheldon airs a special pilot preview M Sep 25 if you’d like to set your DVR to not watch that, too.
★ The Orville
9–10pm, FOX, September 10
The pitch: Star Trek meets Family Guy!!
Watch if you: Happen to be one of four people in the universe that love both Star Trek and Family Guy and always thought they needed a crossover
Skip if you: Can’t possibly imagine how a Star Trek and Family Guy mash-up can work (narrator: it doesn’t)
★★★★ Will & Grace (reboot)
9–9:30pm, CBS, September 28
The pitch: They’re back!!
Watch if you: Have waited 11 years for more episodes of this 16-time Emmy-winning hit comedy
Skip if you: Are afraid it can’t possibly be as good and will ruin the original
★★★★ Better Things (s2)
10–10:30pm, FX, September 14
The pitch: The hilarious Pamela Adlon navigates life as a single mother of three, an actor, a daughter of an aging mother, and a girlfriend
Watch if you: Emmy worthy acting from Pamela Adlon… Louie… Believable teenage daughters dealing with with real life modern problems
Skip if you: Have… Better Things… to do…?
★★★ S.W.A.T.
10–11pm, CBS, November 2
The pitch: Criminal Minds’ Derek Morgan is back in this adaptation of the eponymous 2003 movie starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell
Watch if you like: Shemar Moore… learning that S.W.A.T. is an acronym… heavy amounts of action… TV adaptations of movies you forgot about
Skip if you: Are just so hooked on The Brave and SEAL Team by November that you can’t imagine adding another military operations show
Fridays
★ Marvel’s Inhumans
9–10pm, ABC, September 29
The pitch: The guy from Hell on Wheels plays Black Belt in Marvel’s record-breaking 78th TV show to come out in the last five years
Watch if you like: Marvel’s universe… isolated superhumans you’ve never heard of… TV shows that are the first ever to premiere on IMAX
Skip if you: Haven’t caught up on Marvel’s previous 113 shows and are skeptical about the upside of a show ABC stashed on Friday nights
Sundays
★★★ The Toy Box (s2)
7–8pm, ABC, October 1
The pitch: Shark Tank, but for toys, and the judges are insufferable kids!!
Watch if you like: Watching toy inventors’ lives completely ruined at the hands of smarmy 14-year-old Sophia Grace and clueless 8-year-old pudge Noah Ritter… winning toys to be sold on the now-defunct Toys“R”Us
Skip if you: Would rather just watch Shark Tank two hours later
★★ Wisdom of the Crowd
8–9pm, CBS, October 1
The pitch: Ari Gold as a tech whiz that solves murders with the creation of a crowd-sourcing app (and a few billion dollars)!!
Watch if you like: Jeremy Piven… James Surowiecki’s eponymous 2004 book about the power of aggregation of information in groups… crazy technology that conveniently covers over every plot hole
Skip if you: Are almost certain you have seen multiple versions of a rich techie solving crimes, including last year’s failed APB
★★★★ Ghosted
8:30–9pm, FOX, October 1
The pitch: Funny guys Adam Scott and Craig Robinson star in sitcom This Is the End investigating paranormal activity in Los Angeles!!
Watch if you like: Darryl from The Office… Ben from Parks and Recreation… funny people doing funny things… Hot Tub Time Machine 2 redux
Skip if you: Don’t like laughing
★★ Ten Days in the Valley
10–11pm, ABC, October 1
The pitch: The Closer’s daughter is kidnapped, forcing her to turn to the very police the TV show she’s producing are indicting. Oh the irony!!
Watch if you like: Kyra Sedgwick… the return of Mr. Eko from Lost (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)… poor “ironic” high-concept shows
Skip if you: Have seen one too many dark shows about intense crimes and need a mental break after watching football all day
★★★★★ Curb Your Enthusiasm (reboot)
10–10:30pm, HBO, October 1
The pitch: It’s finally back!!
Watch if you like: Larry David… Cheryl Hines… tons of cameos… Seinfeld, but even more cringe-worthy-but-uproarious shows about nothing… waiting six years for the funniest comedy on television to return
Skip if you: Are too cheap to pay for HBO (please, we both know you use your neighbor’s uncle’s girlfriend’s log-in)
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