I barely survived it, but Upfronts Week is finally over, and we now have a more concrete idea of what the fall television schedule for the networks will look like — at least for the first week and a half before the networks begin pulling underperforming shows from the schedule to be cancelled months later. I actually ranked all of the trailers and put them into a meaningless, contextless list over on Chron.com if you’re interested, but since I hate lists, I’m not going go out of my way to encourage you to check it out.
If you’re a fan of superhero series or military dramas, good news! You’ll have plenty to choose from on Mondays this fall. And in fact, the networks have carefully made sure your preferences won’t conflict with one another: Supergirl and new Fox series The Gifted will not go up against one another; similarly, new military series, Valor and The Brave, will be in different time slots. That just leaves fans of The Voice and Dancing with the Stars locked in their eternal struggle, trying to decide which series to watch live.
I might give Me, Myself & I a chance out of a certain affection for Saturday Night Live‘s Bobby Moynihan, but I’m not going to become too attached as I don’t think it looks like a natural fit for CBS.
There are two other new series on Mondays: 9JKL and The Good Doctor, which to my eye look terrible for very different reasons.
9JKL is a typical CBS multi-camera, laugh-tracked comedy, filled with broad and vaguely raunchy jokes. It has a great cast including Elliott Gould, Linda Lavin and David Walton for whom I have an inexplicable affection. But I think I’m going to be sitting this one out. As I have grown older, I’ve accepted that there are certain things in this life that I can not tolerate and nor should I have to. High on that list: canned laughter.
As for The Good Doctor, it appears to be a feel-good drama about an autistic doctor starring the excellent Freddie Highmore. I want to applaud a series for featuring a high-functioning autistic adult, but I have to say the trailer fills me with dread. Based only on 2 minutes and 40 seconds, this series appears to be an overly sentimental Dr. Rainman … which, no. Just … no. No! No.
And so in conclusion, it’s looking like Mondays will be the night I catch up on Netflix.
New series are highlighted in pink, trailers for the new series are below:
| MON. | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | Dancing with the Stars | The Good Doctor |
| CBS | The Big Bang Theory/ Kevin Can Wait | 9JKL | Kevin Can Wait/ Me, Myself & I | Me, Myself & I / Superior Donuts | Scorpion |
| CW | Supergirl | Valor | Local |
| FOX | Lucifer | The Gifted | News/Local |
| NBC | The Voice | The Brave |
The Good Doctor (ABC)
9JKL (CBS)
Me, Myself & I (CBS)
Valor (The CW)
The Gifted (Fox)
The Brave (NBC)