Fall TV preview: Fine tuning

Enlarge Image

Go On (JUSTIN LUBIN/NBC)

Related Items

1. Columns

   • ABC's got some far-out Neighbors and a devilish hotel

Enlarge Image

Animal Practice (CHRIS HASTON /NBC)

Enlarge Image

Vegas

Wow, that was fast. It's as if I finished watching the season finale of The Good Wife, I blinked, and then summer was gone.

The arrival of September means the kids have gone back to school, mornings have a chill to them, night is falling at a much earlier hour, and in cluttered offices and on overused couches all over North America, TV-critic types are scrambling to prepare their annual fall television preview material.

Here at the Free Press, that fun starts today and will continue, daily, all next week. We'll provide a night-by-night analysis of the prime-time schedule on major networks on both sides of the border, with the aim of helping you cut through the clutter and find the new dramas and comedies that are worthy of a spot in your ever-too-crowded list of must-see shows.

It is, as always, a hectic time for TV-watchers. During the next couple of weeks, more than two dozen new series will première on Canadian and U.S. networks, with nearly twice as many returning titles also making their way back onto the schedule. And many more new arrivals will be added by mid-October, so it's probably useful to know what's good, what's bad, and what's just plain ugly in the 2012-13 prime-time crop.

Here are a few of the titles I'm looking forward to as the fall-launch frenzy approaches:

• ABC's Nashville, a soapy but smart drama in which Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) plays an aging country-music diva trying to sustain her stardom while a young upstart challenger, played by Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), tries to knock her off her perch by any means necessary.
• NBC's Go On (which also airs on Global in Canada) brings Friends alumnus Matthew Perry back to prime time in a sitcom worthy of his talents. He plays a sports-radio announcer who's forced into group therapy by his bosses as a means of helping him cope with the recent death of his wife. Believe me, it's much funnier than it sounds.
• NBC's Revolution (Citytv), a near-future fantasy, from Lost/Alias producer J.J. Abrams, about a world in which all electrical power has mysteriously been lost. Winnipeg product Tracy Spiridakos stars as a fearless young woman who sets out to rescue her brother, who has been kidnapped by a band of mercenaries.
• ABC's Last Resort (Global), a gripping military drama from writer/producer Shaun Ryan (The Shield), which stars Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) and Canuck Scott Speedman (Felicity) as commanders of a nuclear submarine who go rogue and on the run after refusing an unexplained and unjust order to launch nuclear missiles at a big-city Middle Eastern target.
• CBC's Titanic: Blood and Steel, an ambitious eight-part drama from the producers of The Tudors and Camelot. Neve Campbell (Party of Five) and Chris Noth (Law & Order) star.
• ABC's 666 Park Avenue (Citytv), a creepy thriller starring Terry O'Quinn (Lost) and Vanessa Williams (Desperate Housewives) as the owners of a historic Manhattan hotel where guests pay a very steep price to have all their needs met. Dave Annable (Brothers & Sisters) and Rachael Taylor (Charlie's Angels) play the young newlyweds who make the perhaps-unfortunate decision to sign on as the building's managers.
• CBS's Vegas (Global), a retro-themed cops-and-mobsters yarn about the early days of Sin City's development as a gambling/tourist destination. Big-screen star Dennis Quaid plays the tough-as-nails rancher who reluctantly becomes the city's no-nonsense sheriff, and Michael Chiklis (The Shield) co-stars as the crime boss who has arrived with intentions of taking control of the town.

There are several other rookie offerings that deserve at least a passing glance -- ranging from a veterinary hospital sitcom (Animal Practice) with a movie-star monkey sidekick to an Americanized version of the Sherlock Holmes saga (Elementary) with a female Watson at the sleuth's side. Starting today, in this section's' inside pages, and continuing Monday through Friday, we'll offer a full breakdown of the upcoming season's new arrivals and an update on when you can expect your returning favourites to arrive.

Tune in. It'll be fun, I think.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 8, 2012 G1