Part Two of "Introduction to the 2011 Fall Season"

Welcome to Part Two of my “Introduction to the 2011 Fall Season.”

NBC is taking viewers back to the 60s with its retro-drama The Playboy Club.  Not one to be one-upped, ABC is time-traveling to the same era with the Christina Ricci-headed Pan Am.  And to top it off, ABC and producer Drew Barrymore are bringing the 70s phenom Charlie’s Angels into modern day Miami with TV alums Rachel Taylor (Grey’s Anatomy) and Minka Kelly (Parenthood).

Another adaptation NBC is introducing this fall is Prime Suspect, based on the British series starring Helen Mirren.  The new series stars Maria Bello.  Bit of trivia: Bello is another Coyote Ugly alum to hit TV, following Tyra Banks (America’s Next Top Model), Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs) and veteran John Goodman (Damages, Roseanne).

Fairy tales are of keen interest this season, with Once Upon a Time and Grimm on ABC and NBC, respectively.  The former, co-starring Big Love’s Ginnifer Goodwin, features a woman with a troubled past who is drawn to a small town where fables may just be real.  The latter, inspired by the tales of the Brothers Grimm, features a group of hunters fighting to keep humanity safe from the supernatural. 

Irony?  Grimm will air on Friday nights at 9 p.m., directly opposite the CW’s Supernatural which follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) – also hunters who fight the supernatural (hence the name …).  Personally, I have been with Supernatural from day one and eagerly anticipate its seventh season.  If you are going to choose one of these shows, that’d be my recommendation.

Another theme of the new season seems to “manly men,” with several new male-centric comedies:  ABC’s Last Man Standing, featuring the return of Home Improvement’s Tim Allen; Man Up, also on ABC, about three modern men trying to get in touch with their inner tough guys; and CBS’s How to Be Gentleman, getting Entourage’s Kevin Dillon quickly back to work.

That’s not to say the ladies don’t have their place this year.  Brothers & Sisters’ Emily Van Camp returns in the new ABC drama Revenge, which the network is widely promoting with the enticing tease “When everything you love has been stolen from you, sometimes all you have left is revenge.”  ABC’s dark comedy Suburgatory follows a teenage girl’s transplant to the suburbs.  And the CW’s Hart of Dixie, starring The O.C.’s Rachel Bilson, centers around a wannabe-big city doctor who finds herself left to practice in the deep south (think a little Doc Hollywood).

The CW (the network’s predecessor, The WB, was home for Charmed for eight seasons) is also bringing witches back to the small screen with The Secret Circle, starring Life Unexpected’s Brittany Robertson as 16-year-old Cassie, who discovers her elite school classmates in New Salem are all witches.  I’ll be curious how this show portrays witches, seeing as how True Blood took great liberties with them this summer, as does another CW show, The Vampire Diaries.  But hey, at least they’re kicking butt!

Two cable favorites returning soon are Dexter, which will feature the return of Battlestar Galactica’s Edward James Olmos, and AMC’s The Walking Dead, which has had to deal with creator Frank Darabont’s abrupt exit and will premiere with a 90-minute epic episode.

Other new shows include CBS’ A Gifted Man, starring Patrick Wilson (Watchmen); NBC’s Free Agents, featuring Hank Azaria who will be pulling double duty here along with his many off-camera personas on The Simpsons; the CW’s H8R, hosted by Mario Lopez, who seems determined to keep pace with Ryan Seacrest in the jobs department; and ABC’s new comedy Happy Endings.

So there you have it.  Lots to choose from, higher buzz about some more than others, high expectations as always for all.  But unlike those days of old I spoke of before when series got an entire season to make an impression and gain an audience (Cheers, was far from successful it’s debut season…), shows premiering today get maybe 2 episodes and if they don’t hit, they’re gone.

Putting my two cents in, I’d check out Ringer, Revenge, Up All Night, Person of Interest (though I’ll have to visit it later as I’m already committed to two shows in that time slot), maybe Terra Nova (it’s only 13 episodes) and Once Upon a Time out of curiosity.

I myself am eagerly waiting for the return of Supernatural, Hawaii Five-0, Castle, Nikita, Chuck, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Glee, Criminal Minds and Fringe.  All are available on DVD and also may be airing online, in syndication or available on iTunes and Netflix, so check any and all of them out, especially during those deathly long “hellatuses” we passionate viewers have come to loathe, especially left with awesome, scream-inducing cliffhangers.  Man, are those torture … but fortunately, far, far from now. For now, let’s get to those premieres!

Happy viewing, folks!

Introduction to the 2011 Fall Season (Part One)

For most folks, there are four regular seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall. Sports fans have their additional seasons: baseball, football, basketball, etc. Fashion designers have their own as well.

For people who love television, there’s the beloved Fall TV Season, that blessed time of year when (hopefully) your favorite shows return with all new adventures, mysteries, hook-ups, break-ups, twists, turns and other happenings while new shows debut and vie for your attention, rope you in and entice you to keep watching, giving them broadcasting life and subsequent seasons to come.

Back in the old days, there was a clear cut, measurable TV season:  shows premiered/returned in September, new episodes ran consecutively for a couple of months, followed by a couple of weeks of repeats, then back to new episodes.  Sweeps pulled out all the stops in November, February and May, and seasons – usually capping off at an average of 22 episodes – ended in late May, leading into a vast wasteland of repeats throughout what seemed like an endless summer.

It’s vastly different now.  While most network shows still run around 22 episodes long, cable peppers the on-air landscape with 13-episode runs, ending with a “fall,” “winter” or “spring” finale, picking up a few months later to finish off the season.  It’s often hard to tell where a season begins and ends, finally coming to light with the DVD release.

As for network shows, it’s common now for them to take a painfully long, extended winter break, affectionately known by many as “hellatus,” which can be nearly as long as summer.

Summer itself is actually nowadays a bearable viewing time, teeming with new, often very entertaining series, some scripted (USA, TNT and HBO in particular), others reality and talent-show based (America’s Got Talent, Project Runway).

Still, there’s nothing quite like counting down the days till Premiere Week and anticipating what you’ll be watching, both again and anew.

That being said, here is part one of my “Introduction to the 2011 Fall Season” and what I am observing about the new shows debuting in the coming weeks:

Many familiar faces are returning to TV this fall.  Being a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, I am eagerly awaiting Sarah Michelle Gellar’s return to the small screen, though I’m fully aware Ringer is going to be a far different show.  Of particular interest will be to see how she makes twins Bridget and Siobhan their own entities.  Also making returns in this show are Kristoffer Polaha, last seen in the CW’s Life Unexpected, and LOST alum Nestor Carbonell.

The male alumni of LOST are popping up all over TV.  In addition to Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Terry O’Quinn (John Locke) reunites with Daniel Dae Kim (Jin Kwon) as he joins the team (and returns to the Aloha State) on Hawaii Five-0.  Lance Reddick (Matthew Abadden) returns for another season of the delightfully twisty Fringe.  Ian Somerholder (Boone) continues his reign as bad boy-vamp Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries. Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) headlines the highly anticipated Person of Interest over on CBS, while mid-season welcomes Jorge Garcia (Hugo “Hurley” Reyes) to another mysterious island, Alcatraz, over on FOX.

As for FOX, the net has a heavy hitter in producer Steven Spielberg with his dinosaur-on-the-small screen Terra Nova, a show that follows a family from the future back into the past to establish a second-chance colony of humans in prehistoric times.

Anyone missing American Idol shouldn’t fret: FOX welcomes The X-Factor with the judge-you-just-love-to-hate, Simon Cowell.  Adding to its animated block on Sunday, the network welcomes Allen Gregory from co-creator Jonah Hill, and it’s a little You Again meets Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion in the sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter, which welcomes back Jaime Pressly (My Name is Earl) back to the airwaves.

FOX is also making it a family affair as Zooey Deschanel’s comedy New Girl, about the sexual politics of men and women, joins the same network that airs big sister Emily’s long-running series, Bones.

A family affair of a different kind is happening over on NBC with Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph co-starring in Up All Night, airing on the same network as 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation with fellow alums Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, respectively.  Another close branch extends from Up All Night with co-star Will Arnett, Poehler’s real-life husband.  Rounding out the cast is another familiar face, Christina Applegate, last seen on TV in ABC’s Samantha Who?

NBC welcomes comedienne Whitney Cummings and her sitcom Whitney.  Cummings is actually pulling double-duty this season, as she is also the co-creator and co-producer of the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls (reminiscent of Tom Welling, who starred on-screen in the CW’s Smallville and executive-produced both Smallville and last season’s Hellcats).

Check back for Part Two tomorrow …