Each fall, the TV networks trumpet their dozens of new shows. By the time spring rolls around, the fanfare has faded, and so have most of the programs. It's hard to sort the good from the bad, particularly based on pilots and early episodes. Witness NBC's remake of the British series The Office, whose mediocre first episode has given way to a brilliant ongoing series. Or Millennium, whose thrilling première quickly gave way to mediocrity. This year, The A.V. Club decided simply to go in cold, offering our best guesses based on all available evidence—apart from the shows themselves. Carefully scouring advertisements and promotional spots, then taking educated guesses based on the talent involved, we offer our best guesses about some of this fall's more notable shows. (Note: all air times are EST.)
Monday
How I Met Your Mother
When: 8:30 p.m., CBS (premières Sept. 19)
Concept: In the year 2030, narrator Bob Saget looks back at his wacky courtship of his progeny's mother, which is then shown entirely via flashbacks to the good ol' present.
Will it be any good? The show boasts an intriguing gimmick, but at heart, it looks to be yet another sitcom about quirky twentysomethings living and loving in New York. (Cue the Friends theme song.) Everyone loves co-star Alyson Hannigan, though, especially those of the poindexter persuasion. But do they love her enough to make the show a hit?
Likely most memorable episode: In a riveting twist, it's revealed that Saget is actually narrating the show from a dystopian, cannibalistic future, and he plans to devour his children immediately after regaling them with the story of their parents' wooing. Viewers are horrified, but not as horrified as when Saget ends the episode by reprising his performance in The Aristocrats.
Just Legal
When: 9 p.m., WB (premières Sept. 19)
Concept: Best known as the star of Undeclared and the developmentally disabled boxer in Million Dollar Baby, Jay Baruchel stars as a teenage legal prodigy who's too young to secure work at a reputable practice. The solution? Try a disreputable practice, specifically one run by last-resort lawyer Don Johnson.
Will it be any good? It sounds like Doogie Howser, M.D. with a legal twist, but Baruchel's presence is a promising sign, and the commercials suggest that Don Johnson has learned to embrace the ham within. Could a William Shatner-like comeback be in the cards, or is it Nash Bridges reunion movies from here on out?
Likely most memorable episode: Baruchel uncovers a dark corner of his boss's past when Johnson tunefully informs him of his ongoing search for "A heartbeat… beating like mine."
Kitchen Confidential
When: 8:30 p.m., Fox (premières Sept. 19)
Concept: Based on Anthony Bourdain's salty autobiography about his adventures in the restaurant business, Kitchen Confidential follows a culinary master (Bradley Cooper) who sabotaged his career with boozing, drug use, and womanizing. When he's given an unlikely opportunity to be head chef at a top New York restaurant, his second chance rests on the shoulders of a motley kitchen crew.
Will it be any good? If the show can recreate the feeling of Bourdain's passionate, scabrously funny book, it has the potential to be a winner. But network television may not be the right place for material that thrives on dirty trade secrets and backroom profanity.
Likely most memorable episode: When the meat freezer shorts out overnight, Cooper and the gang proceed with dinner service anyway, covering the spoiled cutlets in a delicious array of spices. An hour later, there's more vomit on the floor than in the end of Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life.
Out Of Practice
When: 9:30 p.m., CBS (premières Sept. 19)
Concept: Lowly psychologist Christopher Gorham clashes with his family of "real doctors," including his divorced surgeon parents, his ER-physician sister, and his plastic-surgeon brother. Hilarity may or may not ensue.
Will it be any good? With the writers of Frasier on board, Kelsey Grammer directing, and Stockard Channing and Henry Winkler in starring roles, Out Of Practice has a sitcom pedigree that's hard to beat. It's sure to pull off canned-laughter humor well. But the subject matter—uppity doctors and their uppity, dysfunctional families—sounds a little like Frasier redux.
Likely most memorable episode: The inevitable installment where all the MDs grudgingly agree to attend family counseling, but instead of hashing out their feelings about each other, they simply take turns ridiculing Gorham, and psychology in general.
Prison Break
When: 9 p.m., Fox (premièred Aug. 29)
Concept: A Chicago engineer deliberately commits armed robbery in order to land himself in prison, where he can help his brother, a death-row inmate who insists he's innocent. The crime? Killing the Vice President's brother.
Will it be any good? A show with a premise as baldly ludicrous as this one would seem to have nowhere to go but up, and indeed, the pilot episode has been collecting a surprising number of good notices. But how many seasons can this elaborate escape plan possibly chew up?
Likely most memorable episode: Determined to uncover the truth about what happened to his dead brother, the Vice President tries to get into prison by violating Illinois' sodomy law, but he's embarrassed to discover that the law was repealed in 1962.
Surface
When: 8 p.m., NBC (premières Sept. 19)
Concept: Something is lurking underwater—and beaching on a South Carolina coast, and leaving slime trails all over a suburban home, and devouring the crew of a submarine near Antarctica—confounding oceanographers, fishermen, teenage boys, naval officers, and preview audiences alike.
Will it be any good? NBC has sunk a lot of money into promoting this hourlong sea/sci-fi drama, so they certainly think so. But though the previews look thrilling enough, mysterious sea creatures can only stay mysterious for so long. It's only a matter of time—an hourlong first episode, say—before the silhouettes, weird whale noises, and quick glimpses of slimy tails grow tiresome.
Likely most memorable episode: Curious teenager Carter Jenkins trying to hide his newly hatched best friends from the research-hungry scientists who are certain to show up at his door.
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Tuesday
Bones
When: 8 p.m., Fox (premières Sept. 13)
Concept: Forensic anthropologist Emily Deschanel investigates crime scenes (including some cold cases) using cutting-edge scientific technology. She's good, but that doesn't keep her from clashing with FBI agent David Boreanaz. But will different kinds of sparks fly between them behind closed doors? (Answer: If the ratings are good, not until at least halfway through season three.)
Will it be any good? The viewing public seems to have a bottomless appetite for shows combining microscopes and murder, but Bones will have to offer something new in order to stand out.
Likely most memorable episode: Deschanel is baffled by remains that defy description, until Boreanaz, surrendering to a lifetime of typecasting, sighs and suggests they could belong to vampires.
Commander In Chief
When: 9 p.m., ABC (premières Sept. 27)
Concept: A woman in the White House? Sure, it doesn't sound so far-fetched as long as the little lady's serving dinner or cleaning the Oval Office. But Commander In Chief is about a woman President. Whoa. Geena Davis returns from whatever the hell it is she's been up to all these years to star as a chief executive who uses her terrifying Amazonian physique to intimidate the American public into electing her its first girl-President.
Will it be any good? That depends. Is ABC trying to soften viewers up for the concept of a Hillary Clinton presidency, or warn them away from one? It's hard to say which would be worse: a shrill political polemic, or the Vaseline-lens, Lifetime Channel-special sentiment showcased in the show's ads.
Likely most memorable episode: Davis' adorable, doe-eyed prepubescent daughter injects some much-needed drama into the show by running away to experience real life on her own, recapturing that highly profitable First Daughter/Chasing Liberty vibe.
My Name Is Earl
When: 9 p.m., NBC (premières Sept. 20)
Concept: Small-town nogoodnik Jason Lee wins the lottery and immediately gets hit by a car. Chastened, he decides to correct all the wrongs he's committed in his life.
Will it be any good? Hmm… Maybe. In bare description, this sounds like it could just as easily be the plot for a dreary Danish drama as an offbeat sitcom. The tremendously charismatic Lee should easily be able to carry his own show, however. And who's that lurking in the background? Why, it's Joe Dirt star Jaime Pressly and The Butterfly Effect's Ethan Suplee. Boo-yah! Also, the series was created by Gregory Thomas Garcia, one of the driving forces behind Yes, Dear. Boo-yah?
Likely most memorable episode: In an attempt to restart the 1980s' trend toward "very special" episodes, Lee and Suplee learn a valuable lesson when guest star Gordon Jump moves to town, opens a bicycle shop, and lures them to the back room with the promise of cartoons.
Sex, Love & Secrets
When: 9 p.m., UPN (premières Sept. 27)
Concept: Denise Richards heads up a cast of plastic hotties who swap partners and heartbreak in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Will it be any good? Did you hear Denise Richards talking last year about how she had to quit nursing her baby so she could get her boobs back in shape for a Playboy pictorial? Holy crap, do we ever hate Denise Richards. Odds are, America will too.
Likely most memorable episode: One of a circle of friends is killed at their 20th high-school reunion, and the survivors flash back to what in their shared pasts might have prompted murder. They start with the moment that Denise Richards was cast as Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough.
Supernatural
When: 9 p.m., WB (premières Sept. 13)
Concept: Two estranged brothers, still haunted by their mother's mysterious death, team up to track down their missing father, who believes his wife was killed by evil forces. Soon after visiting a California town plagued by unexplained deaths, they decide to take up the "family business," which involves crisscrossing the country in a '67 Chevy Impala, hunting down ghosts and creatures that would seem to exist only in legend.
Will it be any good? The WB clearly wants to recapture the magic of past hits like Charmed and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but then again, so did Fox's Point Pleasant, which floundered even with Buffy alums on staff. Also, it's from the writer of Boogeyman…
Likely most memorable episode: Inundated with requests for their services, the brothers hire seasoned Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson, whose enthusiasm and blackness make up for his shortcomings in parapsychology.
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Wednesday
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
When: 8 p.m., NBC (premières Sept. 21)
Concept: What would happen if Martha Stewart totally had her own version of The Apprentice? No it's not a bad Mad TV skit, it's the premise of a cynical new reality show in which ambitious strivers compete for an exciting, extremely desirable job working for a widely ridiculed ex-con walking punchline.
Will it be any good? It should be at least a minor guilty pleasure. Besides, if nothing else, the show should prove a godsend to hacky stand-up comedians, some of whom might even fashion routines comically juxtaposing Stewart's professional life with her recent stint in prison.
Likely most memorable episode: In a misguided attempt to woo the "urban" market, Stewart ill-advisedly decides to dismiss contestants with "Yo, dog, y'all just ain't kicking dope enough flava. Get to steppin, fool." Amid a firestorm of controversy, the would-be catchphrase is retired after a single episode.
Criminal Minds
When: 9 p.m., CBS (premières Sept. 22)
Concept: To catch criminals, Mandy Patinkin has to think like a criminal, as he and his FBI colleagues crack uncrackable cases. It's like the Vincent D'Onofrio Law & Order crossed with the Gary Sinise CSI crossed with every other show on television.
Will it be any good? That can be answered in two words, and one of them is "Patinkin." Although he's one of Broadway's brightest stars, and a reasonably valuable character actor in movies, the divine Mr. M. hasn't exactly set the small screen ablaze.
Likely most memorable episode: Baffled by why a serial killer keeps leaving old clothes at crime scenes, Patinkin puts on a thick beard, lifts up a discarded bowler, and performs "Finishing The Hat" from Sunday In The Park With George.
E-Ring
When: 9 p.m., NBC (premières Sept. 21)
Concept: The "E-Ring" is the outermost loop of the Pentagon, a place occupied by key intelligence officers, military minds, and government officials. NBC's E-Ring is a dramatization of what goes on in the outermost loop of the Pentagon, a place occupied by a pacing Benjamin Bratt, a bombastic Dennis Hopper, and anyone else for whom "the number one mission is survival of the state."
Will it be any good? Well, it'll be as good as anything else produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, which is to say it could run the gamut from blood-pounding melodrama (à la Without A Trace) to blood-curdling cheese (like the mercifully short-lived Skin) to nausea-inducing mindlessness (Kangaroo Jack). With lines like "Can't you feel the love in the air at the Pentagon this morning?" signs point to a heady combination of the three.
Likely most memorable episode: Any episode that features Dennis Hopper as a cigar-chomping, war-room-ready colonel is sure to be more than memorable.
Head Cases
When: 9 p.m., Fox (premières Sept. 14)
Concept: Two former mental patients (Chris O'Donnell and Adam Goldberg) decide to start a law firm. Luckily, they were both practicing attorneys before they went crazy.
Will it be any good? Although the eccentric-lawyer genre has been expertly mined by shows like Boston Legal, Head Cases promises a fresh take on the law as practiced by weirdoes. While Legal's James Spader and William Shatner often play strange for strange's sake, O'Donnell and Goldberg look to be playing real characters (with families, motivations, notable feelings, etc.) as opposed to "characters." In fact, the one thing that could sink the comedic drama is its timeslot: Head Cases is on Wednesday nights up against Lost.
Likely most memorable episode: O'Donnell takes in an orphaned acrobat as his young ward and decides to take the firm's crime-fighting mission to the streets.
Invasion
When: 10 p.m., ABC (tentatively premières Sept. 21)
Concept: Is there an alien invasion afoot? Florida sheriff William Fichtner has reason to wonder.
Will it be any good? It sounds kind of cool, but aren't alien conspiracies just so 1994? Shouldn't Fichtner be tracking down Internet-using serial killers or something? That aside, it may be moot; due to fears that the plot's reliance on a devastating hurricane might be considered insensitive in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ABC has stopped promoting the show and may delay its première.
Likely most memorable episode: In the season finale, Fichtner tracks down the alien, but winds up with egg on his face when it turns out to be a harmless, furry, wisecracking visitor from the planet Melmac. Then, in a chilling epilogue that must be seen to believed, Alf proves that Fichtner was right all along.
Related
When: 9 p.m., WB (premières October 5)
Concept: Four sisters (Jennifer Esposito, Kiele Sanchez, Lizzy Caplan, and Laura Breckenridge) have wildly different lifestyles and personalities. Crazy!
Will it be any good? Friends writer-producer Marta Kaufman is the producer. That's a good sign, right? Right? Here's a sign that's not so good: The WB press release references the show's "great young cast to which our core female audience will instantly relate." Translation: Each character has been market-tested to appeal to a valued sub-demographic.
Likely most memorable episode: Caplan plays a celebrity-catering events coordinator. That can only mean one thing: The year won't pass without another gratuitous Paris Hilton cameo.
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Thursday
Everybody Hates Chris
When: 8 p.m., UPN (premières Sept. 22)
Concept: Ever contemplated what The Wonder Years would be like with less gooey sentimentality and more righteous anger? Then check out Everybody Hates Chris, a sitcom narrated by Chris Rock based on his youthful misadventures as the new guy at elementary school.
Will it be any good? It'd better be, since UPN has all but staked its future on the show's success. That kind of pressure can get to a guy (just ask Dave Chappelle), but thankfully, Everybody Hates Chris is enjoying tremendous buzz in all corners.
Likely most memorable episode: In-jokes abound in a crossover episode where Rock meets and befriends a strange new boy at school who speaks his own crazy made-up gibberish language and wields a righteous belt of fury.
Love, Inc.
When: 9:30 p.m., UPN (premières Sept. 22)
Concept: Busy Philipps and Holly Robinson Peete run a successful matchmaking service, yet they can't seem to find their own dates. Or, as UPN rather dramatically puts it: "These modern day wingwomen work day and night in the field bringing desperately seeking single strangers together to make beautiful relationships. Privately, they continue a personal journey to find their own love."
Will it be any good? Though it sounds like a combination of Hitch (minus Will Smith) and Living Single (minus Queen Latifah), Love, Inc. has a sporting chance of actually being funny. It's the creation of former Late Night With Conan O'Brien writer Andrew Secunda, and star Busy Philipps is a Freaks And Geeks alumna. Of course, all that talk about "personal journeys" in the show's description could mean that the show is reaching beyond mere humor to (gulp) a larger message.
Likely most memorable episode: Philipps and Peete compete for the affections of the same male client, in the process discovering the value of friendshipor the value of a good makeover.
The Night Stalker
When: 9 p.m., ABC (premières Sept. 29)
Concept: The X-Files creative force Frank Spotnitz pays back Chris Carter's debt by reviving the original stalking-the-supernatural TV franchise. Stuart Townsend steps into Darren McGavin's shoes as spook-plagued reporter Carl Kolchak.
Will it be any good? The original Kolchak didn't need a partner, but Spotnitz has given Townsend some backup in the form of Gabrielle Union, which seems like a suspicious attempt to force some Mulder/Scully-style sexual tension. Still, the format is flexible enough that any given episode could be another "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"—assuming the show lasts long enough, which seems doubtful.
Likely most memorable episode: While investigating a modern-day Frankenstein, Townsend and Union get whisked away to a magical world shot in rich black and white, or set to music, or fully animated, or some other goddamn thing that'll impress the "Cheers & Jeers" editor at TV Guide.
Reunion
When: 9 p.m., Fox (premières Sept. 8)
Concept: When one of a circle of friends is killed at their 20th high-school reunion, the survivors flash back to what in their shared pasts might have prompted murder. Each episode takes place in a different year, starting with the moment at graduation that set the trouble in motion.
Will it be any good? As with 24 and Lost, this seems like a premise ideal for television, where subplots and red herrings can play out over weeks and months. And who doesn't want to relive the moment when Poison gave way to Nirvana?
Likely most memorable episode: Poison gives way to Nirvana as the cast of suspects—all recently graduated from college—move en masse to Seattle, get jobs in coffee shops, and start spilling their guts to Cameron Crowe.
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Friday
Ghost Whisperer
When: 8 p.m., CBS (premières Sept. 23)
Concept: Jennifer Love Hewitt has the ability to talk to ghosts. Based on the preview, this ability may be derived from her tight white tank-tops.
Will it be any good? Well… There's always the chance that it could be… And you never know… Really, did X-Files look that good at first? Or Gilmore Girls? And if you look at early episodes of Seinfeld, it's really not all that promising… and… okay. No, it just won't.
Likely most memorable episode: A tie: Kristin Scott Thomas stops by for some red-hot Horse Whisperer/Ghost Whisperer crossover action, involving the troubled spirit of a dead jockey. Then, later in the season, Hewitt and the gang jam out to the godfathers of modern Japanese psychedelic music when Masaki Batoh and the boys in Ghost lend their pipes to an episode involving a record-store clerk who suffocated under a pile of import CDs.
Twins
When: 8:30 p.m., WB (premières Sept. 16)
Concept: It's a veritable Hasbeenpalooza as Mark Linn-Baker, celebrity blogger Melanie Griffith, and Sara Gilbert (that girl from Roseanne whom everyone likes but who hasn't done anything in ages) join forces in this sitcom about fraternal twins who couldn't be more different! Wackiness, tomfoolery, and possibly even shenanigans ensue.
Will it be any good? Dude, that other guy from Perfect Strangers—the one without the crazy accent—is in it. Doesn't that answer the question? Look for much of the cast to reunite in a forthcoming season of The Surreal Life.
Likely most memorable episode: The wildly dissimilar fraternal twins learn that they both have identical cousins, and later discover that they laugh alike, walk alike, and at times even talk alike. It understandably causes them to lose their minds.
Three Wishes
When: 8 p.m., NBC (premières Sept. 23)
Concept: With a team of "experts" in tow, wholesome songstress Amy Grant travels cross-country through small towns, looking to make the inhabitants' inspirational dreams an even more inspiring reality. At all the neighborhood diners, chicken soup for the soul is definitely on the menu.
Will it be any good? Extreme Makeover: Home Edition would seem to have the "Trading Spaces meets Queen For A Day" gimmick locked up, but reality television is a cannibalistic business, and there's no idea so unique that it can't be ripped off wholesale. Still, do we need another show with 10 minutes of actual content surrounded by 50 minutes of self-aggrandizing speeches and redundant recaps? If you can make it past the premise without needing an insulin shot, perhaps this is the show for you. Otherwise, good God no.
Likely most memorable episode: With its ratings flagging, the show takes a saucy turn when a terminally ill 16-year-old boy asks to "make love" for the first time before he dies. After much cajoling from the producers, hunky Trading Spaces carpenter Carter Oosterhouse reluctantly obliges.
Threshold
When: 9 p.m., CBS (premières Sept. 16)
Concept: When an extraterrestrial craft lands in the middle of the ocean, officials are left to wonder whether they're dealing with the aliens from E.T. or the ones from War Of The Worlds. The plucky Carla Gugino leads a team of top-flight professionals—including an aeronautical engineer, a language and communications expert, and a covert operative—to investigate the celestial strangers and prepare for a possible invasion.
Will it be any good? The previews raise the prospect of colonization through bioengineering, which would let the aliens restructure human DNA to fall in line with their own. The chilling vision of science geeks from outer space, or CSI: Roswell?
Likely most memorable episode: Posing as an operative for Operation: Threshold, an alien seduces Gugino, beds her over a few glasses of cheap wine, and restructures her DNA while she sleeps. In the morning, she peers sleepily in the bathroom mirror and is horrified to find Abe Vigoda's face starting back at her.