Todays Show:

Fall 2009 TV Schedule

Its that time of year again. The weather begins to cool, leaves start to change colors, Football is back and we get a bunch of new HDTV shows. When we were kids we looked forward to Christmas and the first day of summer. As adults, we look forward to the fall more than anything else. Some of our favorite shows are coming back with new episodes and we get the opportunity to fill the DVR with brand new series to see what sticks.

TV Guide has a great graph of the fall lineup for the 5 major networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and the CW. TNT has actually come on pretty strong in the last few seasons with shows like Saving Grace, The Closer, Raising the Bar, Leverage and now Dark Blue. Wed like to see TV Guide expand their list to 6 next year. Of course HBO always has compelling content as well.

The TV Remote has a nice listing of the premier dates for all the new and returning shows. Check it out; theres way too much for us to cover on there. Youll notice that some premiers are scheduled to start as early as next Tuesday, Sept. 8. Most of them, however, kick off in a couple/few weeks.

A few new show summaries, most taken from TV Guide.com. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather a few of the shows we thought were noteworthy.

ABC

  • Shark Tank Survivor creator Mark Burnett offers this recession-ready reality show about everyday people pitching their best ideas to captains of industry. Who, it turns out, can be kind of mean.
  • The Forgotten This Jerry Bruckheimer-produced drama centers on a group of amateur detectives led by a former cop (Christian Slater) whose daughter has disappeared. They try to crack murder cases involving unidentified victims - the people everyone else has forgotten. Can it prove more memorable than Slaters My Own Worst Enemy?
  • Modern Family Ed ONeill (Married with Children), Julie Bowen (Ed) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (The Class) headline a top-notch cast delivering a fresh take on the multigenerational family comedy. Our favorite moment from the pilot is scored by the Lion King theme.
  • FlashForward The worlds population sees into the future when everyone blacks out for two minutes and 17 seconds at the same time. The clairvoyant episode staggers the minds of all, as in many instances their futures are not what they expectedand some, it seems, have no future at all. While many recount their experiences on a worldwide Web site, others seek to circumvent their fates; and some, like FBI agent Mark Benford, seek to learn what caused the mass blackout.

CBS

  • Accidentally on Purpose Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) is a film critic with blockbuster news - shes pregnant from a one-night stand with a younger dude (Jon Foster, Life As We Know It). Will this waylay a budding romance with boss Grant Show? What happens next is all very Knocked Up.
  • NCIS: Los Angeles - Chris ODonnell and LL Cool J front this spin-off of the hit CBS procedural, playing Special Agents assigned to the high-tech Office of Special Projects. Academy Award winner Linda Hunt plays their Q/gadget master, while Rocky Carrolls Leon Vance will appear on both NCIS shows.
  • Three Rivers Alex OLoughlin (Moonlight), Katherine Moennig (The L Word) and Daniel Henney (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) populate a team of transplant doctors. Each transplant story is told from three perspectives - those of donor, recipient, and doctors.

CW

  • Melrose Place The CWs remake of the soapy 90s melodrama features many familiar archetypes: the brooding bad boy, the nice couple, and the powerful bitch, to name three. The new show departs from its source material with a mystery storyline concerning a dead body that appears, Sunset Boulevard-style, in the apartment complexs pool. Vets Laura Leighton and Thomas Calabro co-star.
  • The Beautiful Life: TBL Executive produced by Ashton Kutcher, this drama follows two young models (Sara Paxton and High School Musicals Corbin Bleu) as they are swept up in the fashion business. There to guide them (or complicate matters) are the modeling agencys boss (Elle MacPherson) and a model with a few years under her belt (The O.C.s Mischa Barton).

FOX

  • Brothers Retired NFL star Michael Strahan plays a retired NFL star who is summoned back home to visit his ailing dad (Rockys Carl Weathers). While there, he trades barbs with his paraplegic brother (Darryl Chill Mitchell) and gets duped by their mom (CCH Pounder).
  • The Cleveland Show This Family Guy spin-off ships Cleveland Brown off from Quahog to sunny California. Along the way, he makes a (permanent) pit stop in his hometown, fictional Stoolbend, Va., where he rekindles a romance with his high school girlfriend. Series creator Seth Macfarlane, Mike Henry, Sanaa Lathan and Kevin Michael Richardson provide voices.
  • Past Life Fox will debut midseason Have you ever experienced déjà vu or met someone you thought seemed familiar? Do you believe in karma, fate or love at first sight? From writer David Hudgins (“Friday Night Lights), and inspired by the book “The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose, comes PAST LIFE, a new drama series about an unlikely pair of past-life detectives who investigate whether what is happening to you today is the result of who you were before.
  • Human Target - will replace Glee midseason A full-throttle, action-packed thrill ride based on the popular DC Comics graphic novel and starring Mark Valley (Fringe), Chi McBride (Pushing Daisies) and Academy Award nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), the series follows Christopher Chance (Valley), a unique private contractor who will stop at nothing even if it means becoming a human target to keep his clients alive.

NBC

  • Trauma Anastasia Griffith (Damages) and Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) are among a team of EMTs who must confront the astoundingly traumatic moments of a trauma and then quickly treat the injured, often just minutes after tragedy strikes. Much stuff blows up.
  • Mercy Doctor shows are old hat. This year is about nurses. (See also HawthoRNe and Nurse Jackie.) Taylor Schilling and Jaime Lee Kirchner play the nurses who actually run their hospital, and Michelle Trachtenberg is the new kid who learns the harsh realities of medicine.
  • Jay Leno Show A comedic entertainment show led by the former Tonight Show host and featuring topical humor, celebrity guests and correspondents.
  • Community The Soups Joel McHale stars as an ethically challenged attorney who is forced to go back to college - community college. There, he meets a ragtag bunch of misfit toys, including an understated Chevy Chase, Gillian Jacobs and Mad Mens Alison Brie (Hells bells, Trudy!) who all yearn for some higher learning, despite their obvious deficiencies ot in the real world.

TNT

  • Men of a Certain Age Starring Emmy Award winners Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) and Golden Globe winner Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Men of a Certain Age is a new original series that takes a wry look at the bond between three men in their 40s who are lifelong best friends.

Bradens Picks, New Shows

  • NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
  • Human Target (FOX)
  • Community (NBC)
  • Men of a Certain Age (TNT)
  • Possible: Trauma, Mercy, Three Rivers

Aras Picks, New Shows

  • NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
  • FlashForward (ABC), Shark Tank (Kind of) Too bad its still in SD. Shame on ABC!

Bradens Picks, Returning Shows

  • ABC: Castle
  • CBS: NCIS, The Mentalist, Numbers
  • FOX: 24
  • NBC: Chuck, The Office, Southland
  • TNT: Dark Blue, Raising the Bar, HawthoRNe*

Aras Picks, Returning Shows

  • ABC: Lost
  • CBS: How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, NCIS, Survivor
  • FOX: 24, House, Bones, Fringe, Hells Kitchen, American Idol
  • NBC: Chuck, 30 Rock

Download Episode #389