Opening Salvo In TV's Fall Battle
Jay Leno may have completed his first full week of primetime TV, but the new season officially began Monday night with two-hour episodes of "House," "Heroes" and "Dancing With The Stars" and the addition of "Accidentally On Purpose" to CBS's Monday night of comedy.
According to early results, Fox took the ratings crown with "House." The other networks have a chance at a rematch tonight when the second of three "Dancing With Stars" shows ABC has scheduled this week faces off against the season premiere of "NCIS" and the debuts of "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife" on CBS, a new two-hour "The Biggest Loser" on NBC and a two-hour "Hell's Kitchen" on Fox.
(For a complete look at the new season, see TV.com.)
Among the other 20 series debuting between now and early October on the five major broadcast networks are:
Fox's animated "The Cleveland Show" follows longtime pal Cleveland Brown from the "Family Guy" fold as he exits Rhode Island to start a new life in the Virginia town where he grew up.
ABC's "The Forgotten" is a drama about a team of dedicated amateurs (the so-called Forgotten Network) who take up cases the police have abandoned, tracking down the identities of anonymous murder victims while solving the murders of these John and Jane Does. Think: "Without a Trace" mixed with "Cold Case," plus a corpse.
NBC's "Trauma" blends action and medicine to tell the wild-and-woolly story of first-responder paramedics in San Francisco - a sort of al fresco "ER." Also on NBC, "Mercy" is a hospital drama told from the nurses' point of view (think: Showtime's recent "Nurse Jackie," plus a dash of TNT's "Hawthorne"). And CBS is prescribing yet more medicine with "Three Rivers," which introduces to the genre yet another specialty: organ transplant. Stat!
The CW's "The Vampire Diaries" taps into the vampire craze, though anemically, with a high-school soap format.
ABC's "The Witches of Eastwick" is adapted from the novel by John Updike and 1987 hit film that tarred Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jack Nicholson.
ABC's "FlashForward," a paranormal thriller in which everyone around the world simultaneously suffers a 2-minute-17-second blackout, then recovers with visions of what may or may not await them in the future.
The new shows that appear to have gotten the biggest buzz going into the season are NBC's sitcom "Community," and the CBS drama "The Good Wife."
A sort of classroom version of companion NBC comedy "The Office," "Community " stars Chevy Chase, John Oliver and Joel McHale of "The Soup" as adults who enroll at a second-rate community college for any number of reasons, none of them connected with higher education.
"The Good Wife" stars Julianna Margulies as a wife and mother forced to resume her long-ago career as an attorney in the wake of betrayal when her politician hubby, played by Chris Noth, is jailed for corruption and philandering.
Meanwhile, Leno has taken a hit from both the critics and the viewers after his first week in primetime. But that doesn't mean the show is doomed. Unlike scripted shows which go into reruns for months, Leno is live - and earning revenue for NBC - all year long. Ratings don't matter as much and neither does the opinion of critics. If the balance sheet is right, it may have a long life on the air.