In the fall of 2016, around 30 new series debuted on broadcast TV, including enduring favorites The Good Place and This Is Us, as well as forgotten flops like Kevin Can Wait and a MacGyver reboot.
This fall? There are five-ish, not counting new reality shows. (Never have, never will.) I used to write 3,000-plus-word features on fall TV, but now it all fits in this space.
Here’s what’s coming to rabbit-ears TV this season.
Line of Fire (NBC, Peacock), premieres Monday, Sept. 21: Peter Krause (9-1-1) stars as the head of a family whose members work for the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Secret Service and Department of Justice—it’s as if NBC took every CBS drama and made a cop turducken. There are even Blue Bloods-esque family dinners where they “can’t discuss that case,” but you know they will. Line of Fire is a throwback to when these agencies weren’t a Trumpy joke, but so what? Nostalgia’s a hell of a drug.
NCIS: New York (CBS, Paramount+), premieres Tuesday, Oct. 6: Original flavor NCIS begins its 24th season this year, so it must be time for another spinoff, this time starring NCIS: Los Angeles favorite LL Cool J and Hawaii Five-0’s Scott Caan. (If nostalgia’s a drug, CBS is the nation’s dealer on speed dial.) So what sets this Big Apple Naval Criminal Investigative Service show apart from the rest? Veteran NCIS director Dennis Smith says this one is a “darker, edgier show,” which means NCIS: New York has no family dinners.
Eternally Yours (CBS, Paramount+), premieres Thursday, Oct. 8: A 500-years-married vampire couple (Ed Weeks and Allegra Edwards) deal with undead life in Seattle—and their daughter suddenly dating a human normie. Eternally Yours is a made-to-order supernatural companion comedy for Ghosts, but can it live up to the sitcom vampire standard set by the late, great What We Do in the Shadows? Not bloody (heh) likely, but it’s preferable to spending another fall season with Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage.
Cupertino (CBS, Paramount+), premieres Thursday, Oct. 8: A lawyer (Evil’s Mike Colter) who’s been screwed over by tech bros joins forces with another irked attorney (Legion’s Rachel Keller) to wage courtroom underdog war on the billionaire douche canoes of Silicon Valley. Sure, we’ve seen legal dramas featuring ridiculously hot actors as ridiculously hot lawyers before, but Cupertino mildly critiques creeping technocracy on Paramount-owned CBS, which is meta AF. Maybe it won’t make it to October.
Newlyweds (NBC, Peacock), premieres Friday, Oct. 23: When a free spirit (Tea Leoni) impetuously marries a stiff professor (Tim Daly), it’s the wacky rom-com guaranteed a feature in this month’s AARP Magazine. TV old-timers may recall Leoni’s Flying Blind, a ’90s comedy from the early days of the then-new Fox network, wherein she played a younger libertine who couples up with a straight-laced guy. It only lasted one season, and Newlyweds could follow suit—Friday nights are only kind to Reba McEntire sitcoms.
Einstein (CBS, Paramount+), premieres 2027: Former Criminal Minds star Matthew Gray Gubler has been absent from Paramount+’s Criminal Minds: Evolution reboot for years, because he’s supposedly been working on Einstein, which finally materializes … next year. It shouldn’t take that long to produce Monk 2.0, with college professor Lewis Einstein (Gubler), Albert’s great-grandson, in the time-honored Quirky Outsider Helps Cops Solve Cases role, but here we are. Gubler will be free for Evolution by next summer.
Baywatch (Fox, Hulu), premieres 2027: The ’90s megahit Baywatch’s legacy has survived Baywatch Nights (a spinoff with David Hasselhoff as a nocturnal detective), Baywatch: Hawaii (a relocated continuation) and that 2017 Baywatch movie (R.I.P. raunchy theatrical comedies killed by Woke). Now it’s back, with a grown-up Hobie Buchanan (Stephen Amell) taking over for dad Mitch on the beach. Also back are the red swimsuits, the slow-motion running, and the complete lack of irony. Nostalgia ahoy!
The Rockford Files (NBC, Peacock), premieres 2027: Speaking of nostalgia, is NBC’s 1974-1980 private-investigator drama The Rockford Files all that beloved? The series never cracked the top 10 in TV ratings, and it’s mostly been regarded as a ’70s cult favorite akin to Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Also, no one can match the wit and swagger of O.G. star James Garner, least of all new Rockford lead David Boreanaz (SEAL Team, Bones). The original run of The Rockford Files is on Prime Video; just watch that.
